RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Single molecule mass photometry of nucleic acids
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 2020.01.14.904755
DO 10.1101/2020.01.14.904755
A1 Yiwen Li
A1 Weston B. Struwe
A1 Philipp Kukura
YR 2020
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/01/14/2020.01.14.904755.abstract
AB Mass photometry is a recently developed methodology capable of detection, imaging and mass measurement of individual proteins under solution conditions. Here, we show that this approach is equally applicable to nucleic acids, enabling their facile, rapid and accurate detection and quantification using sub-picomoles of sample. The ability to count individual molecules directly measures relative concentrations in complex mixtures without need for separation. Using a dsDNA ladder, we find a linear relationship between the number of bases per molecule and the associated imaging contrast for up to 1200 bp, enabling us to quantify dsDNA length with 4 bp accuracy. These results introduce mass photometry as an accurate and rapid single molecule method complementary to existing DNA characterisation techniques.