Melting transition of directly linked gold nanoparticle DNA assembly

DNA melting and hybridization is a fundamental biological process as well as a crucial step in many modern biotechnology applications. DNA confined on surfaces exhibits a behavior different from that in free solutions. The system of DNA-capped gold nanoparticles exhibits unique phase transitions and represents a new class of complex fluids. Depending on the sequence of the DNA, particles can be linked to each other through direct complementary DNA sequences or via a 'linker' DNA, whose sequence is complementary to the sequence attached to the gold nanoparticles. We observed different melting transitions for these two distinct systems.