AsianScientist (Apr. 1, 2015) – A paper published in Nature Communications has shown that graphene could potentially be used to sequence DNA without the need for labels.
Led by Dr. Jiri Cervenka and PhD candidate Nikolai Dontschuk from the University of Melbourne, the study also included scientists from the Australian Synchrotron and La Trobe University.
The Australian researchers have shown that graphene—a one-atom thick sheet of hexagonally arranged carbon, shaped like chicken wire—can distinguish the four nucleobases that make up DNA: cytosine, guanine, adenine and thymine.
A unique combination of the four nucleobases makes up the individual DNA sequence of a gene. Currently, DNA sequencing is a fundamental tool for medical diagnostics, forensic testing and medical and biological research.
The use of graphene to electrically sequence DNA promises to improve the speed, throughput, reliability and accuracy whilst reducing the price compared to current techniques, said Dontschuk.
“We found that each nucleobase influenced the electronic structure of graphene in a measurably different way,” he explained.
“When used in conjunction with a nanopore (a tiny hole), a single DNA molecule would pass through the graphene-based electrical sensor—like a single string of beads passing through one section of tiny chicken wire—enabling real-time, high-throughput sequencing of a single DNA molecule.”
The research team conducted the first experiments to combine in situ electrical measurements of graphene-based field effect transistors (GFET) with photoemission spectroscopy at the soft x-ray spectroscopy beamline at the Synchrotron.
After comparing the experimental and synchrotron results, the team predicted that single-molecule sensing of guanine, cytosine and thymine by bulk graphene devices could be achieved.
The article can be found at: Dontschuk et al. (2015) A Graphene Field-Effect Transistor as a Molecule-Specific Probe of DNA Nucleobases.
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Source: University of Melbourne.
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