Curcumin conjugated gold nanoparticles for nucleic acid sensing

An emerging field to synthesize gold nanoparticles has been green synthetic routes. Curcumin is a natural diphenolic yellow orange pigment extracted from the dried rhizome of turmeric Curcuma longa and has multiple medicinal benefits. Curcumin is not toxic and safe, thus, it can be a very good candidate to prepare nanoparticles through green synthetic route. In this work we have used curcumin, which interacts with gold ion and subsequently synthesizes gold nanoparticles. These gold nanoparticles are further used to prepare gold nanorods and characterized by scanning electron microscopy and surface plasmon resonance spectrum. The curcumin conjugated gold nanoparticles are spherical and shows photoluminescence properties of curcumin whereas curcumin conjugated Au nanorod shows photoluminescence properties of curucmin and nanorod. These curcumin conjugated gold nanoparticles can successfully determine nucleic acids in the concentration range 100 to 1000 ng per mL with a good linear regression coefficient using Resonance Rayleigh Scattering spectra.