Patent 7951554 was granted and assigned to Nanoprobes on May, 2011 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
The present invention provides compositions, kits, assemblies of articles and methodology for carrying out processes that permit biological enzymes to act directly on metals and metal particles. In particular, the invention concerns using enzymes to selectively deposit metal to the vicinity of a target molecule. The invention also relates to linking of metals to enzyme substrates, control of enzymatic metal deposition and applications of enzymatic metal deposition to sensitively and selectively detect target molecules such as biomarkers in various biological samples, such as chromogenic immunohistochemical (IHC) detection in situ by using microscopy.