Role of outer surface probes for regulating ion gating of nanochannels

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...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature communications 2018-01, Vol.9 (1), p.40-10, Article 40
Main Authors: Li, Xinchun, Zhai, Tianyou, Gao, Pengcheng, Cheng, Hongli, Hou, Ruizuo, Lou, Xiaoding, Xia, Fan
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
631/61/2049
639/925/350
Biomimetics
Chemistry
Deoxyribonucleic acid
DNA
DNA probes
DNA sequencing
Efficiency
Gating
Gating systems
Humanities and Social Sciences
Investigations
Laboratories
Molecular machines
multidisciplinary
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
Switches
Synergistic effect
Voltammetry
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Summary: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. Ion gating in biological channels is commonly controlled by functional elements. Here, the authors elucidate the contribution of outer-surface functional elements on ion gating of biomimetic nanochannels, providing insight into the design of effective nanochannel-based biosensors and electronics.
ISSN:2041-1723
2041-1723
DOI:10.1038/s41467-017-02447-7