Detection of DNA alterations using gold nanoparticles exploiting the LSP phenomenon

In this paper we propose the theoretical possibility to use plasmonic nanoparticles to investigate alternative gene splicing. Nanoparticle flows are transmitted by a nanomachine, and diffuse in a biological environment, till reaching a receiver. The detection process of DNA alterations is accomplished when nanoparticles are captured at the receiver, through ligand-receptor bindings. A sensing platform, consisting of a silica substraste with an array of thin gold patches, is used for the immobilization of DNA capture sequence. The colloidal particles are functionalized with specific splice junctions of gene sequences (particularly, we considered the breast cancer susceptibility gene 1), to reveal alterations that could be associated to an early disease condition. A sandwich structure occurs only if the mutation (i.e., a target sequence) is present. To test this scheme, the electromagnetic analysis of the sensing platform is derived through full-wave numerical simulations. The Extinction-Cross Section is evaluated, in the case of synchronous and asynchronous nanoparticles detection.