Plasmon-Resonance-Energy-Transfer-Based Spectroscopy on Single Nanoparticles: Biomolecular Recognition and Enzyme Kinetics.

The small absorption cross sections of most molecules led to the low sensitivity of traditional optical absorption spectroscopy. This obstacle might be overcome by applying the near-field plasmon resonance energy transfer (PRET) between plasmonic nanoparticle and surrounding molecules. In this work, we utilized PRET-based spectroscopy on single gold nanostars to study the specific biomolecule recognition and enzyme kinetics choosing biotin-SA pair and DNase I as models. By analyzing the changes of absorption spectra for black hole quencher 3 (BHQ3), derived from spectra difference, we explored the kinetics of specific biomolecule recognition and enzyme digestion in different physiological environment, and we found that the viscosities of media and the sizes of molecules play vital role in biomolecular recognition and enzyme digestion. Compared with the traditional optical absorption spectroscopy techniques, PRET-based spectroscopy offers a nanoscopic resolution owing to the small size of the probe, is more sensitive and achieves detection on the order of hundreds or even dozens of molecules, and can achieve high selectivity due to the specific biomolecular recognition. This method might be used in the fields of molecular diagnostics, drug discovery, cell systems, and clinical diagnostics.