Label-free monitoring of individual DNA hybridization using SERS

Sequence-specific detection of DNA hybridization at the single-molecule level has been instrumental and gradually become a ubiquitous tool in a wide variety of biological and biomedical applications such as clinical diagnostics, biosensors, and drug development. Label-free and amplification-free schemes are of particular interest because they could potentially provide in situ monitoring of individual hybridization events, which may lead to techniques for discriminating subtle variations due to single-base modification without stringency control or repetitive thermal cycling. Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) has been widely used for molecular detection and identification by exploiting the localized surface plasmon resonance effect when the target molecules are near gold or silver nanostructures. However, effective and robust SERS assays have yet become a reality for trace detection. Recently, we have developed a SERS substrate by shaping nanoporous gold thin films into monolithic submicron disks, called nanoporous gold disks (NPGD). Here we demonstrate in situ monitoring of the same immobilized ssDNA molecules and their individual hybridization events.