Journal
NATURE COMMUNICATIONS
Volume 5, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP
DOI: 10.1038/ncomms6171
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Funding
- National Science Foundation [DMR-0955959]
- National Institutes of Health [R01-HG007406]
- Oxford Nanopore Technologies
- XSEDE Allocation Grant [MCA05S028]
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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.
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