Synthesis of Urchin-like Metal-phenolic Coordination Crystals as a Sensing Platform for Sequence-Specific Detection of Nucleic Acid

Spiny metal–phenolic coordination crystals are synthesized using a nontoxic plant polyphenol as a ligand. Due to the abundance of metal species and sp2-hybridized carbon atoms on their spiny surface, such coordination crystals can adsorb DNA probes and quench the fluorescence, resulting in a high efficiency for nucleic acid assay.