Agarose-stabilized gold nanoparticles for surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopic detection of DNA nucleosides

We present surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) studies of DNA nucleosides using biologically benign agarose-stabilized gold nanoparticles (AAuNP). We compare the SERS activity of nucleosides with AAuNP to that of commercially obtained citrate-stabilized gold nanoparticles and find the SERS activity to be an order of magnitude higher with AAuNP. The higher SERS activity is explained in terms of the agarose matrix, which provides pathways for the gold nanoparticles to have distinct arrangements that result in stronger internal plasmon resonances.