Recently, there has been a growing interest in point-of-care devices capable of detecting nucleic acids (NA) in clinical and environmental samples. Nucleic acid detection requires, however, various sample preparation steps that complicate device operation. An attractive remedy is to integrate many, if not all, sample preparation operations and nucleic acid ...

Extraction and purification of nucleic acids from complex biological samples for PCR are critical steps because inhibitors must be removed that can affect reaction efficiency and the accuracy of results. This preanalytical processing generally involves capturing nucleic acids on microparticles that are then washed with a series of buffers to ...

The first nucleic acid-directed catalytic photochemical reaction that is induced by nontoxic red light was developed. This reaction is fast, high yielding, sequence specific, and enables one to functionalize an oligonucleotide.

The use of nucleic acids as therapeutics offers many potential benefits for treating disease. However, for these delicate yet potent biomolecules to be practical in the clinic, carrier vehicles are needed not only to protect the nucleic acids during transport in the body, but also release the biopolymers at the ...

A novel bridged nucleic acid bearing cyclic urea structure was successfully synthesized and introduced into oligonucleotide, displaying attractive characteristics of highly RNA selective hybridization ability and excellent resistance towards nuclease degradation.

Chemical conjugations of nucleic acids with macromolecules or small molecules are common approaches to study nucleic acids in chemistry and biology and to exploit nucleic acids for medical applications. The conjugation of nucleic acids such as oligonucleotides with peptides is especially useful to circumvent cell delivery and specificity problems of ...

A self-contained, integrated, disposable, sample-to-answer, polycarbonate microfluidic cassette for nucleic acid-based detection of pathogens at the point of care was designed, constructed, and tested. The cassette comprises on-chip sample lysis, nucleic acid isolation, enzymatic amplification (polymerase chain reaction and, when needed, reverse transcription), amplicon labeling, and detection. On-chip pouches and ...

Nucleic acids are attractive materials for creating functional molecules that have applications as catalysts, specific binders, and molecular switches. Nucleic acids having such functions can be obtained by random screening, typically using in vitro selection methods. These methods have helped explore the potential abilities of nucleic acids and steadily contributed ...

Nucleic acids transfer has been steadily improving over the years and is slowly starting to fulfill its long awaited promises. In the beginning, viral approaches raised strong safety concerns that are now answered by various non-viral techniques. Among the physical approaches developed, nucleic acids electrotransfer is probably the one with ...

Nucleic acid aptamers are an emerging class of synthetic ligands and have recently attracted significant attention in numerous fields. One is in biosensor development. In principle, nucleic acid aptamers can be discovered to recognize any molecule of interest with high affinity and specificity. In addition, unlike most ligands evolved in ...

The Nucleic Acid Package (NUPACK) is a growing software suite for the analysis and design of nucleic acid systems. The NUPACK web server (http://www.nupack.org) currently enables: Analysis: thermodynamic analysis of dilute solutions of interacting nucleic acid strands.Design: sequence design for complexes of nucleic acid strands intended to adopt a target ...

The detection of biologically important molecules such as proteins and nucleic acids is of high and growing interest in the diagnosis of diseases from cancer to infectious and cardiovascular disease. The use of nanostructures to enhance sensitivity in biomolecular detection has now been reported in a broad range of assays. ...

Since the early 1970s, the use of nucleic acid sequences for specific diagnostic applications has followed a somewhat linear pattern of development. Early methods for restriction enzyme digestion, as well as reverse transcription, were followed in the late 1970s by Southern, northern and dot blotting, as well as DNA sequencing. ...

We report an improved method for total nucleic acids extraction from rumen content samples. The method employs bead beating, and phenol-chloroform extraction followed by saline-alcohol precipitation. Total nucleic acids and RNA yield and purity were assessed by spectrophotometric measurements; RNA integrity was estimated using Agilent RNA 6000 Nano Kit on ...

Nucleic acid aptamers can be selected from pools of random-sequence oligonucleotides to bind a wide range of biomedically relevant proteins with affinities and specificities that are comparable to antibodies. Aptamers exhibit significant advantages relative to protein therapeutics in terms of size, synthetic accessibility and modification by medicinal chemistry. Despite these ...

The ability to deliver nucleic acids (e.g., plasmid DNA, antisense oligonucleotides, siRNA) offers the potential to develop potent vaccines and novel therapeutics. However, nucleic acid-based therapeutics are still in their early stages as a new category of biologics. The efficacy of nucleic acids requires that these molecules be delivered to ...

Polymers present an interesting option for the delivery of genes and other therapeutic nucleic acids. In the delivery process, the polymeric carriers face many different delivery tasks and different physiological microenvironments. Polymers can be designed to respond to microenvironmental differences with changes in their physio-chemical properties, enabling them to perform ...

Nucleic acid-based nanotechnology has always been perceived as novel, but has begun to move from theoretical demonstrations to practical applications. In particular, the large address spaces available to nucleic acids can be exploited to encode algorithms and/or act as circuits and thereby process molecular information. In this review we not ...

Oligopyrenotides, abiotic oligomers that exhibit significant structural analogies to the nucleic acids, are described. They are composed of achiral, phosphodiester-linked pyrene building blocks and a single chiral 1,2-diaminocyclohexane unit. These oligomers form stable hybrids in aqueous solution. Hybridization is based on stacking interactions of the pyrene building blocks. They show ...

The discovery of circulating nucleic acids in the 1940s opened up new possibilities for the non-invasive detection, monitoring and screening of various human disorders. Several tumour markers that enable early cancer detection or tumour behaviour prediction have been detected in the plasma of cancer patients. Maternal plasma analysis can be ...

The use of fluorescent nucleic acid base analogues is becoming increasingly important in the fields of biology, biochemistry and biophysical chemistry as well as in the field of DNA nanotechnology. The advantage of being able to incorporate a fluorescent probe molecule close to the site of examination in the nucleic ...

Autoimmunity to ubiquitously expressed macromolecular nucleic acid-protein complexes such as the nucleosome or the spliceosome is a characteristic feature of systemic autoimmune diseases. Disease-specificity and/or association with clinical features of some of these autoimmune responses suggest pathogenic involvement which, however, has been proven in only a few cases so far. ...

In this work, we discuss the active or passive character of helicases. In the past years, several studies have used the theoretical framework proposed by Betterton and Julicher [Betterton, M.D. and Julicher, F. (2005) Opening of nucleic-acid double strands by helicases: active versus passive opening. Phys. Rev. E, 71, 11904-11911.] ...

Effective isolation of nucleic acids from samples containing viral materials is an essential step for accurate diagnosis of viral infections. The necessity of this critical step before analytical identification and diagnosis of viral infections is paramount to screening programs and to identifying and monitoring epidemics and pandemics. With molecular assays ...

Peptide nucleic acids are a class of nondegradable oligonucleotide mimics that can be used as probes for nucleic acid sequences and could convey the necessary stability to be a diagnostic tool for use in a resource-limited setting. In this review, there is a brief introduction to the field of peptide ...

Nearly all aspects of nucleic acid metabolism involve motor proteins. This diverse group of enzymes, which includes DNA and RNA polymerases, the ribosome, helicases, and other translocases, converts chemical energy in the form of bond hydrolysis into concerted motion along nucleic acid filaments. The direct observation of this motion at ...

This study investigated nucleic acid oxidation associated with exposure to benzene at low levels in 239 workers recruited among traffic policemen, taxi drivers and gasoline pump attendants of the city of Parma (Italy). Biomarkers of exposure, namely urinary t,t-muconic acid (t,t-MA) and S-phenylmercapturic acid (S-PMA), urinary cotinine, and urinary biomarkers ...

Nucleic acids, the storage molecules of genetic information, are composed of repeating polymers of ribonucleotides (in RNA) or deoxyribonucleotides (in DNA), which are themselves composed of a phosphate moiety, a sugar moiety, and a nitrogenous base. The interactions between these components and mineral surfaces are important because there is a ...

The polymerase chain reaction has facilitated the ready analysis of nucleic acids. A next challenge requires the development of means to unravel the complexity of heterogeneous tissues. This has presented the task of producing massively parallelized quantitative nucleic acid data from the cellular constituents of tissues. The production of aqueous ...

Circulating nucleic acids are present in the blood of humans and other vertebrates. During the last 10 years researchers actively studied cell-free nucleic acids present in plasma or serum with great expectations of their use as potential biomarkers for cancer and other pathologic conditions. In the present manuscript the main ...

Zip nucleic acids (ZNAs) are oligonucleotides conjugated with cationic spermine units that increase affinity for their target. ZNAs were recently shown to enable specific and sensitive reactions when used as primers for polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and reverse-transcription. Here, we report their use as quantitative PCR hydrolysis probes. Ultraviolet duplex ...

Quantitative determination of enzymatic rates, processivity and mechanochemical coupling is a key aspect in characterizing nucleotide triphosphate (NTP)-driven nucleic acid motor enzymes, for both basic research and technological applications. Here, we present a streamlined analytical method suitable for the determination of all key functional parameters based on measurement of NTP ...

It is estimated that over two thirds of all new crystal structures of proteins are determined via the protein selenium derivatization (selenomethionine (Se-Met) strategy). This selenium derivatization strategy via MAD (multi-wavelength anomalous dispersion) phasing has revolutionized protein X-ray crystallography. Through our pioneer research, similarly, Se has also been successfully incorporated ...

The RNA world hypothesis proposes that nucleic acids were once responsible for both information storage and chemical catalysis, before the advent of coded protein synthesis. However, it is difficult to imagine how nucleic acid polymers first appeared, as the abiotic chemical formation of long nucleic acid polymers from mononucleotides or ...

Peptide nucleic acids (PNAs) are nucleic acid analogs having attractive properties such as quiet stability against nucleases and proteases, and they form strong complexes with complementary strands of DNA or RNA. Because of this attractive nature, PNA is often used in antisense technology to inhibit gene expression and microbial cell ...

We have determined diversities exceeding 10(12) different sequences in an annealing and melting assay using synthetic randomized oligonucleotides as a standard. For such high diversities, the annealing kinetics differ from those observed for low diversities, favouring the remelting curve after annealing as the best indicator of complexity. Direct comparisons of ...

Realization of the potential of nucleic acids as drugs is intricately linked to their in vivo delivery. Cationic lipids demonstrated tremendous potential as safe, efficient and scalable in vitro carriers of nucleic acids. For in vivo delivery of nucleic acids, the extant two component liposomal preparations consisting of cationic lipids ...

Locked Nucleic Acid (LNA) is a unique nucleic-acid modification possessing very high binding affinity and excellent specificity toward complementary RNA or DNA oligonucleotides. The remarkable properties exhibited by LNA oligonucleotides have been employed in different nucleic acid-based therapeutic strategies both in vitro and in vivo. Herein, we highlight the applications ...

Deoxyribozymes are promising biotechnological tools. In a recent JACS article, Mokany et al. reported on the design of multi-component deoxyribozyme (MNAzyme) sensors based on 10-23 and 8-17 DNA enzymes. The sensors can detect down to 5 pM of a specific nucleic acid. The versatility of MNAzyme platform allows the design ...

Novel amino-reactive derivatives of lanthanide-based luminescent labels of enhanced brightness and metal retention were synthesized and used for the detection of cDNA oligonucleotides by molecular beacons. Time-resolved acquisition of the luminescent signal that occurs upon hybridization of the probe to the target enabled the avoidance of short-lived background fluorescence, markedly ...

This study describes the first application of unlocked nucleic acid (UNA)-modified small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) directed against a medically relevant target, the coxsackievirus B3. We systematically analyzed the impact of different siRNA modification patterns and observed good compatibility of the introduction of UNA with the maintenance of high antiviral activity. ...

Nucleic acid-based therapies offer great potential for treatment of a variety of diseases including cancer by modulating protein expression with DNA or small interfering RNA. However, realization of their full therapeutic potential is currently limited due to an inability to reach the target site in an active form. Identification of ...

We have developed a rapid (under 4 hours), multiplex, nucleic acid assay, adapted to a microsphere array detection platform. We call this assay multiplex oligonucleotide ligation-PCR (MOL-PCR). Unlike other ligation-based assays that require multiple steps, our protocol consists of a single tube reaction, followed by hybridization to a Luminex microsphere ...

The rational formation of aromatic chromophore arrays is an intriguing challenge since ordered collectives of chromophores possess properties that are largely different from those of the individual molecules. Therefore, nucleic acids are increasingly used as scaffolds for the construction of multi-chromophore arrays. This tutorial review provides an introduction to the ...

An improved loop mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) assay for rapid, sensitive and specific detection of cyprinid herpes virus-3 (CyHV-3), also known as koi herpes virus (KHV), was developed. The lower detection limit of the CyHV-3-LAMP assay is 10 fg DNA which equivalent to 30 copies of CyHV-3 genome. Nucleic acid ...

The successful delivery of nucleic acids to particular target sites is the challenge that is being addressed using a variety of viral and nonviral delivery systems, both of which have distinct advantages and disadvantages. Nonviral vectors offer the advantage of safety and flexibility over viral vectors, although they lack efficiency. ...

This review examines acyclic nucleoside analogs as therapeutic agents, potential progenitor candidates to RNA, and novel building blocks for nucleic-acid nanotechnology. Together, these areas of research provide new insights into the structural and functional properties of nucleic acids and suggest new paradigms for nucleic acid self-assembly.

To increase the versatility and utility of nucleic acid enzymes, we developed multicomponent complexes, known as MNAzymes, which produce amplified "output" signals in response to specific "input" signals. Multiple oligonucleotide partzymes assemble into active MNAzymes only in the presence of an input assembly facilitator such as a target nucleic acid. ...

Nucleic acid electrophoresis separation heavily depends upon gel or nongel sieving matrix. Here we propose a metal ion mediated-capillary electrophoresis (MCE-CE) by utilizing the nonspecific interactions of Mg(2+) and Ca(2+) and demonstrate the size, conformation, or sequence based separation and characterization of versatile nucleic acid molecules in free solution. Mg(2+) ...

SELEX (Systematic Evolution of Ligands by Exponential Enrichment) is a procedure by which a mixture of nucleic acids can be fractionated with the goal of identifying those with specific biochemical activities.One combines the mixture with a specific target molecule and then separates the target-NA complex from the resulting reactions. The ...