Enhancement of PCR Reaction Efficiency by Gold-Nanoparticles Immobilized at Microreactor Surface

Metal nanoparticles are widely employed in molecular biology as PCR-facilitators for the improvement of the polymerase chain reaction efficiency. Various metal nanoparticles were investigated such as Platinum, Silver and Gold, with various capping approach. The PCR enhancement mechanism could be related to the excellent heat dispersion of metal nanomaterial, to the surface interaction with the DNA template and with the enzyme polymerase. Herein we report the Real Time PCR facilitator effect of Gold nanoparticles immobilized at microreator surface. The Gold nanoparticles prepared with the standard chemical reduction method have been immobilized on epoxy-silanized plastic microreactor surface. The PCR efficiency was evaluated in presence of different amounts of nanoparticles. The results demonstrated that the Gold nanoparticles immobilized at surface were able to increase the polymerase chain reaction efficiency mainly by metal thermal efficiency mechanism, determining a sensitivity improvement of about 3 CT (corresponding to about one magnitude order). The proposed approach is very promising for the application on molecular diagnostics applications.