(619b) Nucleic Acid Extraction with Chemically Stable Metallic Nanomagnets

Magnetic particles have been used commercially for many years for the extraction of nucleic acids from various biological samples. This talk will give a short overview of silica and polymer coated magnetic particles for nucleic acid extraction and focus on the trend towards decreasing particle sizes, down to the 10-30 nm size range. Problems of small particle sizes are discussed in terms of particle stability, aggregation, separation velocity and selectivity. Our recent advances in using specifically designed carbon coated metallic nanoparticles for the extraction of nucleic acids from biological media will show how the individual problems can be addressed and how the novel and highly substrate sensitive magnetic separation agents can be synthesized. Image: Extraction of a standard DNA ladder from biological samples with specifically designed metallic nanoparticles. Line M represents the standard. The particles in line 1, 2 and 3 were treated with water (1), strong acid (2) and strong base (3) prior to the extraction of the length standard from a biological fluid and depict the high chemical stability of the particles. Ref: Grass, Athanassiou and Stark, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2007.