Full Width at Half Maximum of Nanopore Current Blockage Controlled by a Single-Biomolecule Interface

A biological nanopore is one of the predominant singlemolecule approaches as a result of its controllable single-biomolecule interface, which could reflect the intrinsic information on an individual molecule in a label-free way. Because the current blockage is normally treated as the most important parameter for nanopore identification of every single molecule, the fluctuation of current blockage for certain types of molecules, defined as full width at half maximum (fwhm) of current blockage, actually owns a dominant influence on nanopore resolution. Therefore, controlling the fwhm of current blockage of molecules is critical for the sensing capability of the nanopore. Here, taking an aerolysin nanopore as a model, by precisely controlling the functional group in this single-biomolecule interface, we could narrow the fwhm of nanopore current blockage for DNA identification and prolong the duration inside the nanopore. Moreover, a substantial correlation between fwhm of current blockage and duration is established, showing a nonmonotonic variation. Besides, the mechanism is also clarified with studying the detailed current blockage events. This proposed correlation is further demonstrated to be applied uniformly across different mutant aerolysins for a certain DNA. This study proposes a new strategy for regulating molecular sensing from the duration of the analyte, which could guide the resolution of heterogeneity analysis using nanopores.

Automated summary

This study improves the resolution of nanopores by controlling the full width at half maximum (fwhm) of current blockage and establishes a correlation between fwhm and duration. It provides a new strategy for molecular sensing using nanopores.