Homobifunctional Imidoester Combined Black Phosphorus Nanosheets Used as Cofactors for Nucleic Acid Extraction

Abstract

Studies on nucleic acid-based diagnostics technology have been widely applied to clinical disease diagnosis. In particular, practical effective techniques for the isolation and purification of nucleic acids from pathogenic cells are crucial to ensure the accuracy of analysis. However, numerous organic reagents from the current commercial nucleic acid extraction kits have varied potential side effects in early and further specific diagnosis. Here, we present an easy-to-operate assay for nucleic acid extraction through an outstanding two-dimensional material—black phosphorus (BP), which has attracted significant interest in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases due to its high charge carrier mobility, strong optical absorption, and excellent bioactivity. With the characterization of BP, we proposed an optimized nucleic acid extraction system. A portable-safe single 808 nm near-infrared (NIR) laser was used for the BP thermal heating system for nucleic acid extraction without any larger thermal instrument. We found that the purity and quantity of nucleic acid extracted in the BP-based system were three times higher than in a commercial kit. We also modified the nanosized BP coated with homobifunctional imidoester (HI) to enhance the biomolecule binding with both biocompatibility and surface-crosslinking abilities. We believe that the BP-HI-laser system could be a good candidate for designing nucleic acid extraction for disease diagnosis systems.