Capture and Translocation of Nucleic Acids into Sub-5 nm Solid-State Nanopores - Nanopores: Sensing and Fundamental Biological Interactions - page 227

Chapter 10
Capture and Translocation of Nucleic Acids
into Sub-5 nm Solid-State Nanopores

Meni Wanunu, Allison Squires, and Amit Meller

Abstract Nanopores have emerged as single-molecule analytic tools for fundamental
biophysical characterization of nucleic acids as well as for future genomic
applications. The enormous interest in single-molecule analysis has spurred the
development of many different approaches to nanopore fabrication. Of these,
ultrathin solid-state membranes are the most promising substrates, combining
exceptional robustness and control over pore size and shape with an inherently
planar geometry that enables parallel detection with nanopore arrays. Moreover,
nanopores with diameters in the range of 1-5 nm represent an important size regime
for studying nucleic acids, as these pores can translocate long DNA and RNA
molecules in a linear fashion, enabling readout of local nucleic acid structure with
unparalleled read-length. In this review, we focus on two fundamental aspects of
nucleic acid analysis using nanopores, namely the process of DNA capture and the
subsequent translocation dynamics. We compile here a multi-parametric study of
double-stranded DNA molecules of lengths ranging from 50 to 50,000 bp, and
discuss the influence of DNA length, applied voltage, temperature, and salt buffer
concentrations on the capture and translocation processes.

Keywords Solid-state nanopores ￿ Single-molecule detection ￿ DNA

translocation ￿ DNA capture ￿ DNA-pore interactions ￿ Salt gradient

focusing ￿ Attomole detection