Salmon Sperm Deoxyribonucleic acid (SS-DNA) may be used to study physicochemical interactions of DNA with binding agents, intercalation agents, modification agents, detection agents and compaction agents. Salmon sperm DNA is used to study the loading capacity of magnetic mesoporous silica nanoparticles (M-MSNs) and binding capacities of polymer nanolayer architectures. SS-DNA may be used as substrate for development of DNA detection assays.