Inhibition of in vitro amplification of targeted DNA fragment and activity of exonuclease I by a fullerene–oligonucleotide conjugate

Novel biological activities of a fullerene–oligonucleotide conjugate (FONC) were examined in the present report. A new FONC containing a complementary sequence to a specific region of the β-actin cDNA was synthesized. We found that the FONC at a low concentration (10−6 M) could specifically inhibit PCR-amplification of the β-actin cDNA by inhibiting the activities of both Taq DNA polymerase and the cDNA template. This inhibition appeared to be mediated by reactive oxygen species (ROS). The FONC also exhibited the ability of antagonizing the enzymatic activity of an engineered nuclease, exonuclease I (Exo I). Our data provided some valuable evidences on the prospective use of FONC in the antisense strategy for gene silencing.