MOLECULAR RECOGNITION OF NUCLEOBASES ATTACHED TO SELF-ASSEMBLED MONOLAYERS DETECTED BY CHEMICAL FORCE MICROSCOPY AND QUARTZ CRYSTAL MICROBALANCE

In order to develop a new DNA sequencing method by using chemical force microscopy (CFM), we have investigated the interaction of the hydrogen bonding between surfaces of nucleobase self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) and AFM-tips modified with the nucleobases. The two different adhesion forces, the jump-in force and pull-off force, between the AFM-tip modified with cytosine-SAM and the surfaces of four kinds of nucleobase SAMs were measured in water (20°C) by CFM. The adsorption of poly (C) onto a nucleobase-SAM on a gold electrode of quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) was measured as resonance frequency changes. The relative relation among four bases showed similar tendency in the adhesion force measured by the cytosine AFM-tip and in the adsorption amount of poly (C) on the QCM electrode as well as in the theoretically calculated interaction energies between two nucleobases.