Photo-thermal effects in gold nanorods/DNA complexes

An ingenious combination of plasmonic nanomaterials and one of the most relevant biological systems, deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is achieved by bioconjugating gold nanorods (GNRs) with DNA via electrostatic interaction between positively charged GNRs and negatively charged short DNA. The obtained system is investigated as a function of DNA concentration by means of gel electrophoresis, zeta-potential, DNA melting and morphological analysis. It turns out that the obtained bioconjugated systems present both effective electric charge and aggregate size that are particularly amenable for gene therapy and nanomedicine applications. Finally, the effect of the localized (photo-thermal heating) and delocalized temperature variation on the DNA melting by performing both light induced bio-transparent optical heating experiments and a thermographic analysis is investigated, demonstrating that the developed system can be exploited for monitoring nanoscale temperature variation under optical illumination with very high sensitivity.