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Demonstration of biophoton-driven DNA replication via gold nanoparticle-distance modulated yield oscillation

Nano Research volume 14, pages 40–45 (2021)Cite this article

Abstract

Biologically, there exist two kinds of syntheses: photosynthesis and ATP-driven biosynthesis. The light harvesting of photosynthesis is known to achieve an efficiency of ∼ 95% by the quantum energy transfer of photons. However, how the ATP-driven biosynthesis reaches its high efficiency still remains unknown. Deoxynucleotide triphosphates (dNTPs) in polymerase chain reaction (PCR) adopt the identical way of ATP to release their energy, and thus can be employed to explore the ATP energy process. Here, using a gold nanoparticle (AuNP) enhanced PCR (AuNP-PCR), we demonstrate that the energy released by phosphoanhydride-bond (PB) hydrolysis of dNTPs is in form of photons (PB-photons) to drive DNA replication, by modulating their resonance with the average inter-AuNP distance (D). The experimental results show that both the efficiency and yield of PCR periodically oscillate with D increasing, indicating a quantized process, but not simply a thermal one. The PB-photon wavelength is further determined to 8.4 µm. All these results support that the release, transfer and utilization of bioenergy are in the form of photons. Our findings of ATP-energy quantum conversion will open a new avenue to the studies of high-efficiency bioenergy utilization, biochemistry, biological quantum physics, and even brain sciences.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (No. 2018YFE0205501), the National Natural Science Foundation of China Projects (Nos. 51763019, U1832125, and 31630029) and the National Super-computer Center in Tianjin.

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Author notes

  1. Na Li and Daoling Peng contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Optical-Electrical Computer Engineering, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai, 200093, China

    Na Li, Xianjing Zhang, Feng Zhang & Bo Song

  2. State Key Laboratory of Respiratory Disease, Key Laboratory of Oral Medicine, Guangzhou Institute of Oral Disease, Stomatology Hospital, Department of Biomedical Engineering, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, 511436, China

    Na Li, Xianjing Zhang & Feng Zhang

  3. School of Chemistry, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, 510006, China

    Daoling Peng

  4. State Key Laboratory of Medical Neurobiology, Institute for Translational Brain Research, MOE Frontiers Center for Brain Science, Department of Neurology, Huashan Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200032, China

    Yousheng Shu

  5. Biomedical Nanocenter, School of Life Sciences, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot, 010011, China

    Feng Zhang

  6. Key Laboratory of Bio-inspired Materials and Interfacial Science, Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, China

    Lei Jiang

  7. School of Future Technology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Lei Jiang

  8. Key Laboratory of Bio-inspired Smart Interfacial Science and Technology of Ministry of Education, School of Chemistry, Beihang University, Beijing, 100191, China

    Lei Jiang

Authors
  1. Na Li
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  2. Daoling Peng
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  3. Xianjing Zhang
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  4. Yousheng Shu
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  5. Feng Zhang
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  6. Lei Jiang
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  7. Bo Song
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Feng Zhang, Lei Jiang or Bo Song.

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Li, N., Peng, D., Zhang, X. et al. Demonstration of biophoton-driven DNA replication via gold nanoparticle-distance modulated yield oscillation. Nano Res. 14, 40–45 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-020-2937-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-020-2937-z

Keywords

  • intrinsic biophoton
  • DNA replication
  • polymerase chain reaction (PCR)
  • gold nanoparticle
  • high-efficiency energy utilization
  • biological quantum physics