Li Xinchun, Zhai Tianyou, Gao Pengcheng, Cheng Hongli, Hou Ruizuo, Lou Xiaoding, Xia Fan
State Key Laboratory of Material Processing and Die & Mould Technology, School of Material Sciences and Engineering, Hubei Key Laboratory of Bioinorganic Chemistry & Materia Medica, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), 430074, Wuhan, China.
Pharmaceutical Analysis Division, School of Pharmacy, Guangxi Medical University, 530021, Nanning, China.
Nat Commun. 2018 Jan 3;9(1):40. doi: 10.1038/s41467-017-02447-7.
Nanochannels with functional elements have shown promise for DNA sequencing, single-molecule sensing, and ion gating. Ionic current measurement is currently a benchmark, but is focused solely on the contribution from nanochannels' inner-wall functional elements (NIWFE); the attributes of functional elements at nanochannels' outer surface (NOSFE) are nearly ignored, and remain elusive. Here we show that the role of NOSFE and NIWFE for ion gating can be distinguished by constructing DNA architectures using dual-current readout. The established molecular switches have continuously tunable and reversible ion-gating ability. We find that NOSFE exhibits negligible ion-gating behavior, but it can produce a synergistic effect in alliance with NIWFE. Moreover, the high-efficiency gating systems display more noticeable synergistic effect than the low-efficiency ones. We also reveal that the probe amount of NOSFE and NIWFE is almost equally distributed in our biomimetic nanochannels, which is potentially a premise for the synergistic ion-gating phenomena.
具有功能元件的纳米通道在DNA测序、单分子传感和离子门控方面已展现出前景。离子电流测量目前是一个基准，但仅关注纳米通道内壁功能元件（NIWFE）的贡献；纳米通道外表面（NOSFE）功能元件的特性几乎被忽视，仍然难以捉摸。在此，我们表明，通过使用双电流读出构建DNA结构，可以区分NOSFE和NIWFE在离子门控中的作用。所建立的分子开关具有连续可调且可逆的离子门控能力。我们发现，NOSFE表现出可忽略不计的离子门控行为，但它可以与NIWFE协同产生协同效应。此外，高效门控系统比低效门控系统表现出更显著的协同效应。我们还揭示，在我们的仿生纳米通道中，NOSFE和NIWFE的探针量几乎均匀分布，这可能是协同离子门控现象的一个前提。
