We consider voltage-driving DNA translocation through a nanopore in the present study. By assuming the DNA is coaxial with the cylindrical nanopore, a hydrodynamic model for determining effective force on a single DNA molecule in a nanopore was presented, in which density functional theory (DFT) combined with the continuum Navier-Stokes (NS) equations is utilized to investigate electro-osmotic flow and the viscous drag force acting on the DNA inside a nanopore. Surface charge on the walls of the nanopore is also taken into account in our model. The consistence between our calculation and the previous experimental measurement indicates that the present theoretical model is an effective tool to predict the hydrodynamic resistance on DNA. Results show that charge inversion, which cannot be obtained by the Poisson-Boltzmann (PB) model, will reduce electro-osmotic velocity, or even lead to flow reversal for higher salt concentration. This is helpful to raise the effective force profoundly in the overscreening region.
The translocation of double-stranded DNA through a solid-state nanopore may either decrease or increase the ionic current depending on the ionic concentration of the surrounding solution. Below a certain crossover ionic concentration, the current change inverts from a current blockade to current enhancement. In this paper, we show that the crossover concentration for bundled DNA nanostructures composed of multiple connected DNA double-helices is lower than that of double-stranded DNA. Our measurements suggest that counterion mobility in the vicinity of DNA is reduced depending on the three-dim…
Promoting single-file DNA translocations through nanopores using electroosmotic flow
双链DNA在沿着其长度的某处被捕获时，以线性、单列方式或以折叠的发夹构象移位通过足够大的纳米孔。我们表明，DNA的折叠状态可以通过改变测量缓冲液的电解质浓度，pH值和PEG含量来控制。在1 M LiCl或0.35 M KCl中性pH下，单列易位占总数的90%以上。我们属性的影响，从孔在低离子强度的电渗流的发病。我们的假设的关键作用的流量是支持的首选方向进入的一条链已被折叠成一个多螺旋结构的一端。对DNA折叠的控制对于纳米孔传感方法是至关重要的，该方法使用沿着DNA链的修饰和相关的次级电流降来编码信息。
Electrophoretic Capture of a DNA Chain into a Nanopore
基于我们提出的孔附近DNA电泳的公式[P.Rowghanian和A. Y. Grosberg，Phys.Rev.E87，042723（2013）]，我们将电泳DNA捕获到纳米孔中作为粒子吸收到放置在能量屏障顶部的汇的稳态过程。我们的模型将之前观察到的扩散限制和势垒限制机制再现为粒子吸收过程的两个不同限制并匹配数据，表明对于非常大的DNA分子，捕获率随着DNA长度的增长比之前的模型更慢，激发了更多超出当前电场和DNA长度范围的实验。在中等强度的弱电场下，我们的模型预测了不同的效果，指出捕获率的DNA长度依赖性首先随着电场的减小而消失，并最终逆转为$N$的下降趋势。
Using theory and simulations, we carried out a first systematic characterization of DNA unzipping via nanopore translocation. Starting from partially unzipped states, we found three dynamical regimes depending on the applied force, f: (i) heterogeneous DNA retraction and rezipping (f < 17pN), (ii) normal (17pN < f < 60pN) and (iii) anomalous (f > 60pN) drift-diffusive behavior. We show that the normal drift-diffusion regime can be effectively modelled as a one-dimensional stochastic process in a tilted periodic potential. We use the theory of stochastic processes to recover the potential from …
We present a new concept for the separation of DNA molecules by contour length that combines a nanofluidic ratchet, nanopore translocation and pulsed fields. Using Langevin Dynamics simulations, we show that it is possible to design pulsed field sequences to ratchet captured semiflexible molecules in such a way that only short chains successfully translocate, effectively transforming the nanopore process into a low pass molecular filter. We also show that asymmetric pulses can significantly enhance the device efficiency. The process itself can be performed with many pores in parallel, and it s…
Flow-driven rotary motors drive functional processes in human society such as windmills and water wheels. Although examples of such rotary motors also feature prominently in cell biology, their synthetic construction at the nanoscale has thus far remained elusive. Here, we demonstrate flow-driven rotary motion of a self-organized DNA nanostructure that is docked onto a nanopore in a thin solid-state membrane. An elastic DNA bundle self assembles into a chiral conformation upon phoretic docking onto the solid-state nanopore, and subsequently displays a sustained unidirectional rotary motion of …
We report an accurate method to determine DNA barcodes from the dwell time measurement of protein tags (barcodes) along the DNA backbone using Brownian dynamics simulation of a model DNA and use a recursive theoretical scheme which improves the measurements to almost 100 % accuracy. The heavier protein tags along the DNA backbone introduce a large speed variation in the chain that can be understood using the idea of non-equilibrium tension propagation theory. However, from an initial rough characterization of velocities into "fast" (nucleotides) and "slow" (protein tags) domains, we introduce …
We investigate the salt-dependent current modulation of bundled DNA nanostructures in a nanopore. To this end, we developed four simulation models for a 2x2 origami structure with increasing level of detail: from the mean-field level to an all-atom representation of the DNA structure. We observe a consistent pore conductivity as a function of salt concentration for all four models. However, a comparison of our data to recent experimental investigations on similar systems displays significant deviations. We discuss possible reasons for the discrepancies and propose extensions to our models for …
DNA capture with high fidelity is an essential part of nanopore translocation. We report several important aspects of the capture process and subsequent translocation of a model DNA polymer through a solid-state nanopore in presence of an extended electric field using the Brownian dynamics simulation that enables us to record statistics of the conformations at every stage of the translocation process. By releasing the equilibrated DNAs from different equipotentials, we observe that the capture time distribution depends on the initial starting point and follows a Poisson process. The field grad…
We investigate the ionic current modulation in DNA nanopore translocation setups by numerically solving the electrokinetic mean-field equations for an idealized model. Specifically, we study the dependence of the ionic current on the relative length of the translocating molecule. Our simulations show a significantly smaller ionic current for DNA molecules that are shorter than the pore at low salt concentrations. These effects can be ascribed to the polarization of the ion cloud along the DNA that leads to an opposing electric dipole field. Our results for DNA shine light on the observed discr…
The potential of a double nanopore system to determine DNA barcodes has been demonstrated experimentally. By carrying out Brownian dynamics simulation on a coarse-grained model DNA with protein tag (barcodes) at known locations along the chain backbone, we demonstrate that due to large variation of velocities of the chain segments between the tags, it is inevitable to under/overestimate the genetic lengths from the experimental current blockade and time of flight data. We demonstrate that it is the tension propagation along the chain's backbone that governs the motion of the entire chain and i…
We consider the influence of electrostatic forces on driven translocation dynamics of a flexible polyelectrolyte being pulled through a nanopore by an external force on the head monomer. To this end, we augment the iso-flux tension propagation (IFTP) theory with electrostatics for a negatively charged biopolymer pulled through a nanopore embedded in a similarly charged anionic membrane. We show that for the realistic case such as a single-stranded DNA, the translocation dynamics at low salt where screening is weak and at finite negative membrane charge is unexpectedly accelerated despite the l…
We simulate a tug-of-war (TOW) scenario for a model double-stranded DNA threading through a double nanopore (DNP) system. The DNA, simultaneously captured at both pores is subject to two equal and opposite forces $-\vec{f}_L= \vec{f}_R$ (TOW), where $\vec{f}_L$ and $\vec{f}_R$ are the forces applied to the left and the right pore respectively. Even though the net force on the DNA polymer $Δ\vec{f}_{LR}=\vec{f}_L+ \vec{f}_R=0$, the mean first passage time (MFPT) $\langle τ\rangle$ depends on the magnitude of the TOW forces $ \left | f_L \right | = \left |f_R \right | = f_{LR}$. We qualitatively…
We present a new method for calculating internal forces in DNA structures using coarse-grained models and demonstrate its utility with the oxDNA model. The instantaneous forces on individual nucleotides are explored and related to model potentials, and using our framework, internal forces are calculated for two simple DNA systems and for a recently-published nanoscopic force clamp. Our results highlight some pitfalls associated with conventional methods for estimating internal forces, which are based on elastic polymer models, and emphasise the importance of carefully considering secondary str…
We use a combination of computer simulations and iso-flux tension propagation (IFTP) theory to investigate translocation dynamics of a flexible linear polymer through a nanopore into an environment composed of repulsive active rods in 2D. We demonstrate that the rod activity induces a crowding effect on the polymer, leading to a time-dependent net force that facilitates translocation into the active environment. Incorporating this force into the IFTP theory for pore-driven translocation allows us to characterise translocation dynamics in detail and derive a scaling form for the average translo…
Compression and stretching of a self-avoiding chain in cylindrical nanopores
利用分子动力学模拟、标度分析和解析计算，研究了直径为$D$的圆柱形空腔内自回避链的力致变形.我们得到并确认一个简单的标度关系$-f \cdot D \sim R^{-9/4}$在强压缩制度，而对于弱变形，我们发现$f \cdot D = -A(R/R_0) + B (R/R_0)^{-2}$，其中$A$和$B$是常数，$f$的外力，和$R$的链延伸（与$R_0$其未扰动值）。对于一个强的拉伸，我们提出了一个普遍的，分析力的延伸关系。我们的研究结果可用于分析生物分子在约束条件下的行为。
