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Nature Research, Nature Communications, 1(5), 2014

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms6171

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Conformational Transitions and Stop-and-Go Nanopore Transport of Single Stranded DNA on Charged Graphene

Journal article published in 2014 by Manish Shankla, Aleksei Aksimentiev ORCID
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Abstract

Control over interactions with biomolecules holds the key to applications of graphene in biotechnology. One such application is nanopore sequencing, where a DNA molecule is electrophoretically driven through a graphene nanopore. Here, we investigate how interactions of single-stranded DNA and a graphene membrane can be controlled by electrically biasing the membrane. The results of our molecular dynamics simulations suggest that electric charge on graphene can force a DNA homopolymer to adopt a range of strikingly different conformations. The conformational response is sensitive to even very subtle nucleotide modifications, such as DNA methylation. The speed of DNA motion through a graphene nanopore is strongly affected by the graphene charge: a positive charge accelerates the motion whereas a negative charge arrests it. As a possible application of the effect, we demonstrate stop-and-go transport of DNA controlled by the charge of graphene. Such on-demand transport of DNA is essential for realizing nanopore sequencing.