Creating a DNA Thermometer: An Application for

DNA Computation
Rebekah Karadeema,a Felix Sosa,a and Dmitry M. Kolpashchikova,b,c
a

Chemistry Department, bBurnett School of Biomedical Sciences, cNational

Center for Forensic Science, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL, 32816
(USA)
Recent developments in DNA nanotechnology and synthetic biology prove
that DNA strands can be easily designed synthesized and assembled to
nanodevises,1,2 that are potentially useful for disease diagnosis,3 the control
gene expression,4 or direct treatment of cancers among other applications. 5
While great advancements have been made at the proof of concept, few fully
functional devices and therapeutics that surpass the performance of
conventional methods have been realized. In this project we propose to
create the first binary DNA thermometer that can measure temperature in a
surrounding nano-environment and report it in a user-friendly seven segment
display format. The thermometer consists of a small DNA complex that uses
adapter strands to modulate DNA hybridization to allow for cooperative
binding and melting of the complex. The cooperative nature reduces partial
complex association, allowing for a sharp melting curve and digital readout
of temperatures. At low temperatures, the fully associated complex
quenches fluorescence, giving the binary Boolean output of 0. When the
temperature exceed Tx (T>Tx), the complex disassociates, releasing the
Reporter and producing the binary readout of 1. Such a thermometer can
potentially be applied for measuring temperature of individual cells in vivo,
detecting localization of cancer cells at early stages or for measuring
temperature in cellular compartments (organelles).
1. Stojanovic, M. N., et al. Nat. Biotechnol. 2003, 21, 106973.
2. Poje, J. E., et al. Angew. Chemie, 2014, 35, 9376-9.
3. Kolpashchikov, D. M. J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2008, 130, 2934-5.
4. Benenson, Y., et al. Nature, 2004, 439, 423-9.
5. Douglas, SM, et al. Science. 2012, 335, 832-4.

Funding from NSF CCF (1117205 and 1423219) is greatly appreciated.