DNA-Based Nanopore Sensing

• Published in: Angewandte Chemie International Edition Vol. 55; no. 49; pp. 15216 - 15222
• Main Authors: Liu, Lei, Wu, Hai-Chen
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Germany Blackwell Publishing Ltd 05-12-2016; Wiley Subscription Services, Inc
• Edition: International ed. in English
• Subjects: current signatures; Deoxyribonucleic acid; DNA; DNA - chemistry; DNA probes; DNA Probes - chemistry; Nanopores; quantification; sensing; Sensors; sensing; nanopores; quantification; DNA probes; current signatures
• ISSN: 1433-7851; 1521-3773
• DOI: 10.1002/anie.201604405

Nanopore sensing is an attractive, label‐free approach that can measure single molecules. Although initially proposed for rapid and low‐cost DNA sequencing, nanopore sensors have been successfully employed in the detection of a wide variety of substrates. Early successes were mostly achieved based on two main strategies by 1) creating sensing elements inside the nanopore through protein mutation and chemical modification or 2) using molecular adapters to enhance analyte recognition. Over the past five years, DNA molecules started to be used as probes for sensing rather than substrates for sequencing. In this Minireview, we highlight the recent research efforts of nanopore sensing based on DNA‐mediated characteristic current events. As nanopore sensing is becoming increasingly important in biochemical and biophysical studies, DNA‐based sensing may find wider applications in investigating DNA‐involving biological processes.
DNA–analyte interactions: Conformational changes of rationally designed DNA probes in nanopores caused by the DNA–analyte interactions may induce distinct current changes during the DNA translocation process. The current signatures can be used to not only ascertain the existence of the analytes but also quantify their concentrations.