Fig. 1

Cartoons of the probe concept (left), and the measured fluorescence spectra (right). The 19b-Probe sequence (a) produces a strong fluorescence centered on 562 nm emission (d, blue, dashed curve), after silver is added and reduced. The unbound Probe-AON sequence (b) does not yield a significant fluorescence (d, black curve) when it is not bound to the target strand. When the Probe-AON sequence binds to the Target sequence (c), a strong fluorescent distribution can be produced which is comparable to that of the 19b-Probe (d, green curve). Experiments were performed with DNA concentrations of 20 µM, mixing the two sequences in a 1:1 ratio