Surface-enhanced Raman scattering molecular nanoprobes
Nanoparticles are increasingly finding a wide application in the biological studies due to their unique physical and chemical properties. Colloidal nanoparticles are efficient substrate that exhibit surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) phenomenon by enhancing the scattering cross-sections of conjugated Raman active molecules thus enabling highly sensitive biological probes. However, biological and medical applications would require nanoparticles to be conjugated to biomolecules. A universal approach for conjugation of mercarptoacetic acid-capped silver nanoparticles to biomolecules is described. The surface functionalized silver colloids were labeled with a Raman active dye and used for cellular imaging. We also described the use of silver nanoparticle to develop a new class of SERS nanoprobes for molecular recognition and detection of specific nucleic acid sequences.
