surface- and tip-enhanced raman spectroscopy of dna表面和tip-enhanced拉曼光谱的dna.pdfVIP

Spectroscopy 24 (2010) 119–124 119 DOI 10.3233/SPE-2010-0416 IOS Press Surface- and tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy of DNA L.E. Hennemann, A.J. Meixner ∗ and D. Zhang∗ Institute of Physical and Theoretical Chemistry, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany Abstract. Calf thymus DNA adsorbed on a rough gold substrate or on an atomically smooth gold (111) surface has been in- vestigated by collecting its unique Raman fingerprints using either surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) or tip-enhanced Raman scattering (TERS). A monolayer coverage of DNA strands adsorbed at both the irregular rough edges of evaporated gold grids and at gold nanoparticles is detected by SERS. Highly improved sensitivity down to single DNA strand spectroscopic de- termination is accomplished by TERS providing an enhancement factor of at least 1400. Based on our experimental results, we propose that TERS is a promising technique to study the DNA–drug molecule interaction on the level of a single DNA strand. Keywords: DNA, Raman spectroscopy, SERS, TERS, parabolic mirror 1. Introduction Comprehension of biomolecular interaction is crucial for the development and improvement of drugs [10]. One of many examples is the interaction of the antibacterial, mutagenic and antitumoral drug 9-aminoacridine with DNA [6], the intercalation of which between the nucleic bases suppresses DNA replication at the binding site [4]. Spectroscopic methods such as Raman scattering or IR absorption have been applied to the determination of DNA genomic investigation without labelling. Raman spectroscopy provides a unique fingerprint of the molecules under investigation and is thus a highly appropriate tool for the study of biological samples. However, conventional Raman spectroscopy is an ensemble approach where locally and temporally restricted effects will get smeared out and weak s