DNA Biosensor with High Sensitivity Amplified by Gold Nanoparticles

A biosensor based on quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) using 50 nm gold nanoparticles as the amplification probe for DNA detection was reported in this paper. It had been found that a DNA detection sensitivity of 10^–14 M could be obtained, which was higher than what has been ever reported using the same method. In the curve of weight increase (m) against the target DNA in solution, a plateau appeared as the concentration of analyte DNA increasing, implying the existence of monolayer of gold nanoparticles binding on the top of target DNA. The high sensitivity was explained not only by the weight of the larger particles, but also the larger area occupied by the larger particles which need less target DNA for their binding.