Imaging and Sizing of Single DNA Molecules on a Mobile Phone
Open Access
- 12 December 2014
- journal article
- research article
- Published by American Chemical Society (ACS) in ACS Nano
- Vol. 8 (12), 12725-12733
- https://doi.org/10.1021/nn505821y
Abstract
DNA imaging techniques using optical microscopy have found numerous applications in biology, chemistry and physics and are based on relatively expensive, bulky and complicated set-ups that limit their use to advanced laboratory settings. Here we demonstrate imaging and length quantification of single molecule DNA strands using a compact, lightweight and cost-effective fluorescence microscope installed on a mobile phone. In addition to an optomechanical attachment that creates a high contrast dark-field imaging setup using an external lens, thin-film interference filters, a miniature dovetail stage and a laser-diode for oblique-angle excitation, we also created a computational framework and a mobile phone application connected to a server back-end for measurement of the lengths of individual DNA molecules that are labeled and stretched using disposable chips. Using this mobile phone platform, we imaged single DNA molecules of various lengths to demonstrate a sizing accuracy of 2.Keywords
Funding Information
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute
- Division of Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation
- Army Research Office (W911NF-13-1-0197, W911NF-13-1-0419)
- Office of Naval Research
- U.S. Department of Defense
- Division of Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental, and Transport Systems
- Türkiye Bilimsel ve Teknolojik Araştırma Kurumu
- National Science Foundation
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