Probing DNA melting behaviour under vibrational strong coupling
Journal article, 2025
Manipulating matter by strong coupling to the vacuum field has attracted intensive interests over the last decade. In particular, vibrational strong coupling (VSC) has shown great potential for modifying ground state properties in solution chemistry and biochemical processes. In this work, the effect of vibrational strong coupling (VSC) of water on the melting behaviour of ds-DNA, an important biophysical process, is explored. Several experimental conditions, including the concentration of ds-DNA, cavity profile, solution environment, as well as thermal annealing treatment were tested. No significant effect of VSC was observed for the melting behaviour of the ds-DNA sequence used. This demonstrates yet again the robustness of ds-DNA to outside perturbations. Our work also provides a general protocol to probe the effects of VSC on biological systems inside microfluid Fabry-Perot cavities and should be beneficial to better understand and harness this phenomenon.
vibrational strong coupling
DNA
melting behaviour
light-matter interaction
Author
Weijian Tao
University of Strasbourg
ISIS - Supramolecular Science and Engineering Institute
Fatma Mihoubi
ISIS - Supramolecular Science and Engineering Institute
University of Strasbourg
University of Cambridge
Bianca Patrahau
ISIS - Supramolecular Science and Engineering Institute
University of Strasbourg
Claudia Bonfio
ISIS - Supramolecular Science and Engineering Institute
University of Cambridge
Bengt Nordén
Chalmers, Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Chemistry and Biochemistry
T. W. Ebbesen
ISIS - Supramolecular Science and Engineering Institute
University of Strasbourg
QRB Discovery
26332892 (eISSN)
Vol. 6 e13Subject Categories (SSIF 2025)
Molecular Biology
Biochemistry
DOI
10.1017/qrd.2025.5