Nucleic Acid Hybridization Detected by Piezoelectric Resonance

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Abstract
Ordinary AT-cut, quartz, piezoelectric crystals as commonly used in watches, radios, computers, etc., were used to detect the hybridization of complementary strands of synthetic RNA's. The method is based on the large absolute mass increase accompanying hybridization. Nucleic acid strands were covalently attached to the polymer-modified surface of a piezoelectric crystal. When these immobilized probe strands were melted and then incubated with complementary target strands in solution, association of probe and target to form duplexes resulted in an increase in the effective mass of the crystal. After washing away indifferently bound material, a mass increase was detectable as a decrease of several hundred Hertz in the crystal's resonance frequency, relative to control crystals on which non-complementary strands were incubated. The encouraging preliminary results suggest that the method may be useful as a non-radioactive means of identifying DNA and RNA. Furthermore, the method requires only very simple equipment, the crystals used are inexpensive, and the results are quantitative as well as qualitative.

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