1] IBM T J Watson Research Center, 1101 Kitchawan Road, Yorktown Heights, NY, 10598, USA [2].
1] IBM Research Australia, 204 Lygon Street, 3053 Carlton, VIC, Australia [2].
Sci Rep. 2014 Feb 5;4:3985. doi: 10.1038/srep03985.
Channels formed by membrane proteins regulate the transport of water, ions or nutrients that are essential to cells' metabolism. Recent advances in nanotechnology allow us to fabricate solid-state nanopores for transporting and analyzing biomolecules. However, uncontrollable surface properties of a fabricated nanopore cause irregular transport of biomolecules, limiting potential biomimetic applications. Here we show that a nanopore functionalized with a self-assembled monolayer (SAM) can potentially regulate the transport of a DNA molecule by changing functional groups of the SAM. We found that an enhanced interaction between DNA and a SAM-coated nanopore can slow down the translocation speed of DNA molecules and increase the DNA capture-rate. Our results demonstrate that the transport of DNA molecules inside nanopores could be modulated by coating a SAM on the pore surface. Our method to control the DNA motion inside a nanopore may find its applications in nanopore-based DNA sequencing devices.
通道形成的膜蛋白调节水，离子或营养物质的运输，这是细胞代谢所必需的。纳米技术的最新进展使我们能够制造用于传输和分析生物分子的固态纳米孔。然而，制造的纳米孔的不可控表面性质导致生物分子的不规则传输，限制了潜在的仿生应用。在这里，我们表明，通过改变自组装单层（SAM）的官能团，功能化的纳米孔可以潜在地调节 DNA 分子的运输。我们发现，DNA 与 SAM 涂覆的纳米孔之间的增强相互作用可以降低 DNA 分子的易位速度并增加 DNA 的捕获率。我们的结果表明，通过在孔表面涂覆 SAM 可以调节 DNA 分子在纳米孔内的传输。我们控制纳米孔内 DNA 运动的方法可能会在基于纳米孔的 DNA 测序设备中找到应用。
