A Simple and Rapid New Method for Thiolated DNA Modification of Copper Sulfide Nanoparticles: Preparation of Materials for Cancer Photothermal Therapy

We have demonstrated a rapid and efficient strategy for modifying copper sulfide nanoparticles (CuS NPs) with thiol-modified DNA (SH-DNA) under acidic conditions (CDLp) for the first time. The CDLp method involves mixing CuS NPs with an acidic-citrate buffer (pH = 3.0), rapidly adding SH-DNA, and incubating at 25°C for 10 min to obtain the CuS-DNA conjugate. In contrast, the traditional Salt-aging method requires 12 h to produce CuS-DNA. The experimental results show that the CuS-DNA obtained by the CDLp has similar stability and photothermal properties compared with the CuS-DNA synthesized by the Salt aging method, but it shortens the modification time by more than 10 h. This saves time and costs for the subsequent preparation of photothermal therapy platforms based on CuS.