DNA-templated preparation of palladium nanoparticles and their application

A versatile method, based on the metallization of DNA strands, is developed to prepare palladium nanoparticles on indium tin oxide (ITO) coated glass surface. Resulted palladium nanoparticles are distributed along the DNA strands and their size is controllable in the range of 10–100 nm. This is contrast to the branched palladium aggregates formed on bare ITO surface. When used as an electrochemical sensor, the nanoparticles show strong catalytic activity for the reduction of hydrogen peroxide and the oxidation of ascorbic acid, respectively. Higher catalytic activity is observed with the nanoparticles formed on double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) templates than those on single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) templates.