Chapter 12 - DNA-controlled assembly of liposomes in diagnostics.

DNA-encoding of solid nanoparticles requires surface chemistry, which is often tedious and not generally applicable. In the presented method, noncovalent attachment of DNA is used to assemble soft nanoparticles (liposomes) in solution. This process displays remarkably sharp thermal transitions from the assembled to disassembled state, thus enabling easy and fast detection of polynucleotides (e.g., DNA or RNA), including single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs).