Enhancing the efficiency of polymerase chain reaction using graphene nanoflakes.

The effect of the recently developed graphene nanoflakes (GNFs) on the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) has been investigated in this paper. The rationale behind the use of GNFs is their unique physical and thermal properties. Experiments show that GNFs can enhance the thermal conductivity of base fluids and results also revealed that GNFs are a potential enhancer of PCR efficiency; moreover, the PCR enhancements are strongly dependent on GNF concentration. It was found that GNFs yield DNA product equivalent to positive control with up to 65% reduction in the PCR cycles. It was also observed that the PCR yield is dependent on the GNF size, wherein the surface area increases and augments thermal conductivity. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations were performed to analyze the heat transfer through the PCR tube model in the presence and absence of GNFs. The results suggest that the superior thermal conductivity effect of GNFs may be the main cause of the PCR enhancement.

Enhancement in the efficiency of polymerase chain reaction by TiO2 nanoparticles: crucial role of enhanced thermal conductivity.

Improvement of the specificity and efficiency of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) by nanoparticles is an emerging area of research. We observed that TiO(2) nanoparticles of approximately 25 nm diameter caused significant enhancement of PCR efficiency for various types of templates (namely plasmid DNA, genomic DNA and complementary DNA). By a series of experiments, the optimal TiO(2) concentration was determined to be 0.4 nM, which resulted in up to a seven-fold increase in the amount of PCR product. As much as 50% reduction in overall reaction time (by reduction of the number of cycles and the time periods of cycles) was also achieved by utilizing TiO(2) nanoparticles without compromising the PCR yield. Investigations of the mechanism of such PCR enhancement by simulations using the 'Fluent K epsilon turbulent model' provided evidence of faster heat transfer in the presence of TiO(2) nanoparticles. Consistent with these findings, TiO(2) nanoparticles were observed to augment the denaturation of genomic DNA, indicating more efficient thermal conductivity through the reaction buffer. TiO(2) nanoparticle-assisted PCR may be useful for profound reduction of the overall PCR reaction period and for enhanced amplification of DNA amplicons from a variety of samples, including GC-rich templates that are often observed to yield unsatisfactory results.