Department of Chemistry, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia 30322, United States.
Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia 30322, United States.
J Am Chem Soc. 2021 Nov 24;143(46):19466-19473. doi: 10.1021/jacs.1c08796. Epub 2021 Nov 11.
In single-molecule force spectroscopy (SMFS), a tethered molecule is stretched using a specialized instrument to study how macromolecules extend under force. One problem in SMFS is the serial and slow nature of the measurements, performed one molecule at a time. To address this long-standing challenge, we report on the origami polymer force clamp (OPFC) which enables parallelized manipulation of the mechanical forces experienced by molecules without the need for dedicated SMFS instruments or surface tethering. The OPFC positions target molecules between a rigid nanoscale DNA origami beam and a responsive polymer particle that shrinks on demand. As a proof-of-concept, we record the steady state and time-resolved mechanical unfolding dynamics of DNA hairpins using the fluorescence signal from ensembles of molecules and confirm our conclusion using modeling.
在单分子力谱学（SMFS）中，使用专门的仪器拉伸连接分子，以研究大分子在力的作用下如何伸展。SMFS 中的一个问题是测量的串行和缓慢性质，一次只能测量一个分子。为了解决这个长期存在的挑战，我们报告了折纸聚合物力夹具（OPFC），它可以在不需要专用 SMFS 仪器或表面连接的情况下，平行化处理分子所经历的机械力。OPFC 将目标分子定位在刚性纳米级 DNA 折纸梁和响应性聚合物颗粒之间，该聚合物颗粒按需收缩。作为概念验证，我们使用分子的荧光信号记录 DNA 发夹的稳态和时间分辨机械展开动力学，并使用建模来证实我们的结论。
