Fluorescent ZnO–Au Nanocomposite as a Probe for Elucidating Specificity in DNA Interaction

[Image: see text] In this work, we report the interaction of a fluorescent ZnO–Au nanocomposite with deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), leading to AT-specific DNA interaction, which is hitherto not known. For this study, three natural double-stranded (ds) DNAs having different AT:GC compositions were chosen and a ZnO–Au nanocomposite has been synthesized by anchoring a glutathione-protected gold nanocluster on the surface of egg-shell-membrane (ESM)-based ZnO nanoparticles. The ESM-based bare ZnO nanoparticles did not show any selective interaction toward DNA, whereas intrinsic fluorescence of the ZnO–Au nanocomposite shows an appreciable blue shift (Δλ(max) = 18 nm) in the luminescence wavelength of 520 nm in the presence of ds calf thymus (CT) DNA over other studied DNAs. In addition, the interaction of the nanocomposite through fluorescence studies with single-stranded (ss) CT DNA, synthetic polynucleotides, and nucleobases/nucleotides (adenine, thymine, deoxythymidine monophosphate, deoxyadenosine monophosphate) was also undertaken to delineate the specificity in interaction. A minor blue shift (Δλ(max) = 5 nm) in the emission wavelength at 520 nm was observed for single-stranded CT DNA, suggesting the proficiency of the nanocomposite for discriminating ss and ds CT DNA. More importantly, fluorescence signals from the nano-bio-interaction could be measured directly without any modification of the target, which is the foremost advantage emanated from this study compared with other previous reports. The AT base-pair-induced enhancement was also found to be highest for the melting temperature of CT DNA (ΔT(mCT) = 6.7 °C). Furthermore, spectropolarimetric experiments followed by calorimetric analysis provided evidence for specificity in AT-rich DNA interaction. This study would lead to establish the fluorescent ZnO–Au nanocomposite as a probe for nanomaterial-based DNA-binding study, featuring its specific interaction toward AT-rich DNA.