Gold nanoparticles enhance efficiency of in vitro gene transcription-translation system

Herein we report that the in vitro gene transcription-translation efficiency can be dramatically enhanced by gold nanoparticles of 5nm in diameter. The addition of less than or equal to 1.2 nM of gold nanoparticles of 5 nm in diameter into rapid-translation-system (RTS) reagents increased the transcription-translation efficiency up to 30% and shortened the reaction time to 4 h, with the same or higher translation yields. Gold nanoparticles did not decrease the yields' bioactivity. The results show that gold nanoparticles of 5 nm may act as a bio-catalyst in the RTS reaction. This innovation has great potential in applications such as large-scale protein fabrication, gene transcription-translation regulation, and studies of structure and function of toxic protein.