Nucleic Acids Research, 2000, Vol. 28, No. 22 e98
© 2000 Oxford University Press
End-specific covalent photo-dependent immobilisation of synthetic DNA to paramagnetic beads
Biomolecular Information Processing (BioMIP), GMD-National Research Centre for Information Technology, Schloss Birlinghoven, 53754 Sankt Augustin, Germany and 1Institute of Virology, Winzerlaer Straße 10, 07745 Jena, Germany
A novel approach for light-dependent covalent immobilisation of synthetic DNA oligomers to amino-coated paramagnetic beads is described. A hetero-bifunctional photo-reactive cross-linking chemical, 4-nitrophenyl 3-diazopyruvate, is applied to attach 5' amino-modified DNA to both silica and polystyrene paramagnetic beads. The coupling yields are comparable with similar methods in which no photo-reactive chemicals are used. The immobilised DNA on the polystyrene and silica beads was used efficiently in hybridisation experiments. An extension of this approach to light-directed immobilisation of specific DNA to beads, located at different positions in micro-flow reactors, opens up a range of integrated applications to complex diagnostics, evolutionary biotechnology and novel areas such as DNA computing.
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. Tel: +49 2241 141 517; Fax: +49 2241 141 511; Email: robert.penchovsky@gmd.de