Electrically Actuatable Zero-Mode Waveguides for High-Throughput Sequencing

Abstract

Single-molecule real-time (SMRT) sequencing technology developed by Pacific Biosciences is a robust DNA sequencing method in which DNA strand replication by an individual DNA polymerase is imaged using fluorescently labeled nucleotides. SMRT sequencing, however, suffers from inefficient loading of DNA molecules into nano-wells called zero-mode waveguides (ZMWs). In addition, ZMWs are biased towards the diffusion-based entry of short DNA templates. To overcome these challenges, our lab introduced two powerful tools, i.e., nanopore ZMWs (NZMWs) and porous ZMWs (PZMWs), to electrokinetically enhance the capture of DNA fragments inside the ZMWs.