Surface-tunable bioluminescence resonance energy transfer via geometry-controlled ZnO nanorod coordination

Authors

Jun Hyung Lim, Samsung Display Co, Sungkyunkwan University
Geun Chul Park, Sungkyunkwan University
Seung Muk Lee, Sungkyunkwan University
Jung Heon Lee, Sungkyunkwan University
Butaek Lim, Hanyang University
Soomin Hwang, University of WollongongFollow
Jung Ho Kim, University of WollongongFollow
Hansoo Park, Chung-Ang University
Jinho Joo, Sungkyunkwan University
Young-Pil Kim, Hanyang University

RIS ID

99897

Publication Details

Lim, J., Park, G., Lee, S., Lee, J., Lim, B., Hwang, S., Kim, J., Park, H., Joo, J. & Kim, Y. (2015). Surface-tunable bioluminescence resonance energy transfer via geometry-controlled ZnO nanorod coordination. Small, 11 (28), 3469-3475.

Abstract

The use of ZnO nanorods (NRs) as an effective coordinator and biosensing platform to create bioluminescence resonance energy transfer (BRET) is reported. Herein, a hydrothermal approach is applied to obtain morphologically controlled ZnO NRs, which are directly bound to luciferase (Luc) and carboxy-modified quantum dot (QD) acting as a donor-acceptor pair for BRET. BRET efficiency varies significantly with the geometry of ZnO NRs, which modulates the coordination between hexahistidine-tagged Luc (Luc-His₆) and QD, owing to the combined effect of the total surface area consisting of (001) and (100) planes and their surface polarities. Unlike typical QD-BRET reactions with metal ions (e.g., zinc ions), a geometry-controlled ZnO NR platform can facilitate the design of surface-initiated BRET sensors without being supplemented by copious metal ions: the geometry-controlled ZnO NR platform can therefore pave the way for nanostructure-based biosensors with enhanced analytical performance.