Figure 1.

A - a scheme showing a gold nanoparticle with cell-surface specific nucleolin aptamer (NUAP) that forms a quadruplex dimer and Alexa Fluor 568 labeled STAT3-binding duplex (STAT3d); B - transmission electron microscopy of AuNPs, bar = 100 nm; C- a pseudo-color fluorescent image of a polyacrylamide gel (10% TBE) showing electrophoretic analysis of AuNP-ODN constructs and their components, lane: 1) STAT3d; 2) AuNP-STAT3d; 3) AuNP-CTAP-STAT3d; 4) AuNP-CTAP; 5) CTAP. Control aptamer CTAP was labeled with Cy5.5 (red) and one of the strands of STAT3d was labeled with NIR Dye 800CW (green). An asterisk shows the position of STAT3d-800CW, double asterisk- AuNP conjugates retained at the start; arrow- NUAP-Cy5.5