• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.49 no.3
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• pp.316-319
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• 2021

Restriction endonucleases play an important role in molecular cloning, clinical diagnosis, and pharmacological drug studies. In this study, DNA-templated copper nanoclusters (DNA-CuNCs) were used to detect AluI endonuclease activity due to their high fluorescence emission and rapid synthesis of DNA-CuNCs under ambient conditions. Results showed that AluI activity was detected in a highly sensitive manner at low concentrations of AluI endonuclease by the fluorescence intensity of DNA-CuNCs. Additionally, its inhibition was monitored in the presence of daidzein under optimal conditions.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.1105-1109
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• 2014

While single strand DNAs have been widely used for the scaffold of brightly fluorescent silver nanoclusters (Ag NCs), double strand DNAs have not been as successful. Herein, we report a novel synthetic approach for bright Ag NCs using branched double strand DNAs as the scaffolds for synthesis. X-shaped DNA (X-DNA) and Y-shaped DNA (Y-DNA) effectively stabilized Ag NCs, and both X-DNA and Y-DNA resulted in brightly fluorescent Ag NCs. The concentration and molar ratio of silver and DNA were found important for the fluorescence efficiency. The brightest Ag NC with the photoluminescence quantum efficiency of 19.8% was obtained for the reaction condition of 10 ${\mu}M$ X-DNA, 70 ${\mu}M$ silver, and the reaction time of 48 h. The fluorescence lifetime was about 2 ns for the Ag NCs and was also slightly dependent on the synthetic condition. Addition of Cu ions at the Ag NC preparations resulted in the quenching of Ag NC fluorescence, which was different to the brightening cases of single strand DNA stabilized Ag NCs.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.28 no.9
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• pp.1467-1472
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• 2018

In this study, DNA-templated copper nanoclusters (DNA-CuNCs) were used to detect exonuclease III (Exo III) activity, which is important for the diagnosis and therapy of several diseases. The results of this study showed that Exo III was affected by the concentrations of magnesium ions and sodium ions, and its optimal conditions for cleavage were $5mM\;Mg^{2+}$ and less than $25mM\;Na^+$. With a blunt-end DNA, more than 98% of DNA was digested by Exo III. As expected, with two or four cytosines in the terminal position of a 4-base overhanging DNA such as 5'-GGCC-3' and 5'-CCCC-3', there was little cleavage by Exo III compared with a blunt-end DNA.