Department of Chemistry, Imperial College London, Molecular Science Research Hub, White City Campus, 80 Wood Lane, London W12 0BZ, U.K.
Nano Lett. 2020 Mar 11;20(3):2012-2019. doi: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.9b05307. Epub 2020 Feb 20.
The fine-tuning of molecular transport is a ubiquitous problem of single-molecule methods. The latter is evident even in powerful single-molecule techniques such as nanopore sensing, where the quest for resolving more detailed biomolecular features is often limited by insufficient control of the dynamics of individual molecules within the detection volume of the nanopore. In this work, we introduce and characterize a reconfigurable multi-nanopore architecture that enables additional channels to manipulate the dynamics of DNA molecules in a nanopore. We show that the fabrication process of this device, consisting of four adjacent, individually addressable nanopores located at the tip of a quartz nanopipette, is fast and highly reproducible. By individually tuning the electric field across each nanopore, these devices can operate in several unique cooperative detection modes that allow moving, sensing, and trapping of DNA molecules with high efficiency and increased temporal resolution.
分子传输的微调是单分子方法中普遍存在的问题。即使在强大的单分子技术（如纳米孔传感）中，这种情况也很明显，在这些技术中，对单个分子在纳米孔检测体积内动力学的控制不足，往往限制了对更详细的生物分子特征的解析。在这项工作中，我们引入并表征了一种可重构的多纳米孔结构，该结构允许通过额外的通道来控制纳米孔中 DNA 分子的动力学。我们表明，该器件的制造过程快速且高度可重复，由位于石英纳米管尖端的四个相邻的、可单独寻址的纳米孔组成。通过单独调整每个纳米孔的电场，这些器件可以以几种独特的协作检测模式运行，从而以更高的效率和增加的时间分辨率实现 DNA 分子的移动、传感和捕获。
