Efficient Editing of Silver Nanoclusters by Changing Simply One Cytosine in DNA Template.

DNA with genetic information was edited to regulate and repair the structure and function of the protein. In DNA nanotechnology, DNA with programmable information can be designed to edit fluorescence intensity and emissive colors of DNA-stabilized silver nanoclusters (DNA/AgNCS). By introducing and moving one cytosine in spacer of emitter domain, we have built up a simple strategy to regulate excitation and emission wavelength of AgNCs. With replacement of thymine in the spacer of emitter with one cytosine, the expected excitation and emission change don't occur. However, after moving the introduced cytosine, DNA templates produce AgNCs with extremely different excitation and emission wavelength compared to the initial template, obtaining one template for near-infrared (NIR) emissive species with the highest fluorescence intensity. The formation of AgNCs induces DNA template into condensed secondary structure based on altered migration rate on polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE). The simple strategy by moving one cytosine in spacer in emitter domain can enrich the library of templates for synthesizing diverse DNA/AgNCs and have a great potential in bioimaging and probe design.