Gold nanoparticles and DNA probes for the detection of canine distemper virus

Abstract

Canine distemper virus affects carnivorous animals, is highly inffectious and diagnosis is difficult due to unspecific symptoms. Its essential to develop a fast, precise and low cost diagnosis technique to help the illness control. Gold nanoparticles are widely applied in biological assays, mainly due to its reduced size, large superficial area, optical properties and affinity to a large number of molecules. Small changes in the surface, like a net formation in between nanoparticles, causes a color change that can be seen at naked eye, making simple to identify conjugation of molecules in the surface. DNA probes are widely utilized as recognition elementes, because they are very specific and sensible, a thiol group can be added to the probes, making easy to conjugate with gold nanoparticles by direct contact. Thus, three different probes modified with thiol, poly-Guanine and poly-cytosine groups will be used together to form a nanoparticle network in the presence of viral RNA in urine samples from dogs infected with the virus. (AU)