The development of an efficient delivery system is critical for the successful treatment of cardiovascular diseases using non‑viral gene therapies. Cytoplasmic and nuclear membrane barriers reduce delivery efficiency by impeding the transfection of foreign genes. Thus, a gene delivery system capable of transporting exogenous genes may improve gene therapy. The present study used a novel strateg...

The structures of parent anion, M(-), and deprotonated molecule, [M-H](-), anions of the highly polar p-nitroaniline (pNA) molecule are studied experimentally and theoretically. Photoelectron spectroscopy (PES) of the parent anion is employed to estimate the adiabatic electron affinity (EAa = 0.75 ± 0.1 eV) and vertical detachment energy (VDE = 1.1 eV). These measured energies are in good agree...

Peptide nucleic acid (PNA)-mediated PCR clamping (H. Orum, P. E. Nielsen, M. Egholm, R. H. Berg, O. Buchardt, and C. Stanley, Nucleic Acids Res. 21:5332-5336, 1993) was introduced as a novel procedure to selectively amplify ribosomal DNAs (rDNAs) which are not frequently found in clone libraries generated by standard PCR from complex microbial consortia. Three different PNA molecules were used;...

We report here on the hybridization of peptide nucleic acid (PNA)-based molecular beacons (MB) directly to duplex DNA sites locally exposed by PNA openers. Two stemless PNA beacons were tested, both featuring the same recognition sequence and fluorophore-quencher pair (Fluorescein and DABCYL, respectively) but differing in arrangement of these groups and net electrostatic charge. It was found t...

Sequence-selective recognition of double-stranded (ds) DNA by homopyrimidine peptide nucleic acid (PNA) oligomers can occur by major groove triplex binding or by helix invasion via triplex P-loop formation. We have compared the binding of a decamer, a dodecamer and a pentadecamer thymine-cytosine homopyrimidine PNA oligomer to a sequence complementary homopurine target in duplex DNA using gel-s...

TB PNA FISH is a new fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) method using peptide nucleic acid (PNA) probes for differentiation between species of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTC) and nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) in acid-fast bacillus-positive (AFB+) cultures is described. The test is based on fluorescein-labelled PNA probes that target the rRNA of MTC or NTM species applied ...

In present work, we demonstrate a simple but effective strategy for high-performance supercapacitors by adding the p-nitroaniline (PNA) into an alkaline electrolyte of KOH. PNA possesses a unique molecular structure with the functional groups of -NH2 and -NO2. Besides, both the product of nitro-reduction (-NH2) and intrinsic -NH2 on the benzene ring can lead to the occurrence of Faradaic redox ...

Peptide nucleic acids (PNA) are a unique class of synthetic molecules that have a peptide backbone and can hybridize with nucleic acids. Here, a versatile method has been developed for the automated, in situ synthesis of PNA from a porous silicon (PSi) substrate for applications in gene therapy and biosensing. Nondestructive optical measurements were performed to monitor single base additions o...

Conserved regions within the M1 family of metallo-aminopeptidases have been used to clone a zinc aminopeptidase from the industrially used fungus Aspergillus niger. The derived amino acid sequence of ApsA is highly similar to two yeast zinc aminopeptidases, LAPI and AAPI (53.3 and 50.9% overall similarity, respectively), two members of the M1 family of metallo-aminopeptidases. The encoding gene...

1388-2481/$ see front matter 2008 Elsevier B.V. A doi:10.1016/j.elecom.2008.11.049 * Corresponding author. Tel.: +420 541517177; fax E-mail address: [email protected] (E. Paleček). Peptide nucleic acid (PNA), the DNA mimic with electrically neutral pseudopeptide backbone, is intensively used in biotechnologies and particularly in single-base mismatch detection in DNA hybridization sensors. We prop...