The Effects of Dithiothreitol on DNA

Søren Fjelstrup, Marie Bech Andersen, Jonas Thomsen, Jing Wang, Magnus Stougaard, Finn Skou Pedersen, Yi-Ping Ho, Marianne Smedegaard Hede, Birgitta Ruth Knudsen

Research output: Contribution to journal/Conference contribution in journal/Contribution to newspaperJournal articleResearchpeer-review

17 Citations (Scopus)
411 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

With the novel possibilities for detecting molecules of interest with extreme sensitivity also comes the risk of encountering hitherto negligible sources of error. In life science, such sources of error might be the broad variety of additives such as dithiothreitol (DTT) used to preserve enzyme stability during in vitro reactions. Using two different assays that can sense strand interruptions in double stranded DNA, we here show that DTT is able to introduce nicks in the DNA backbone. DTT was furthermore shown to facilitate the immobilization of fluorescent DNA on an NHS-ester functionalized glass surface. Such reactions may in particular impact the readout from single molecule detection studies and other ultrasensitive assays. This was highlighted by the finding that DTT markedly decreased the signal to noise ratio in a DNA sensor based assay with single molecule resolution.

Original languageEnglish
Article number1201
JournalSensors
Volume17
Issue6
Number of pages10
ISSN1424-8220
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 24 May 2017

Keywords

  • Journal Article

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'The Effects of Dithiothreitol on DNA'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this