Implen Journal Club - Hot Off The Press! Edition - February Issue No. 3

This week’s Novel applications: hot off the press in 2022 issue, Implen's NanoPhotometer Journal Club is covering the use of the NanoPhotometer in a study reported by Sladjana Slavkovic et al.

In Nature’s scientific reports of Artemisinin (ART), a vital medicinal compound derived from the plant Artemisia annua, that is used alone or as part of a combination therapy against malaria. This study investigated the DNA binding ability of ART and showed that the antimalarial compound ART binds DNA molecules that contain duplex DNA structures with structure-switching ability, which was exploited using the photochrome aptamer switch assay. This demonstrated that ART can be detected using this biosensing assay and was the first report of DNA binding to ART. This work should lay the foundation for further work to study implications of DNA binding for the antimalarial activity of ART, as the implication of ART binding these DNA molecules for the role of ART as an antimalarial agent is yet to be revealed.

The NanoPhotometer? N60 was used to verify the concentration of the aptamer for this assay. Extinction coefficients were calculated by the NanoPhotometer? NPOS Software based on the oligonucleotide sequence.

Additional Authors: Aron A. Shoara, Zachary R. Churcher, Elise Daems, Karolien de Wael, Frank Sobott, and Philip E. Johnson

Visit?www.implen.de?to find out how the Nanophotometer? can improve you research.