Abstract
The ingenious design of the bacteriophage phi29 DNA packaging motor with an elegant channel has inspired its applications in nanotechnology. The hub of the motor is a truncated cone shaped connector consisting of twelve protein subunits that form a ring with a central 3.6-nm channel that acts as a path for dsDNA to enter during packaging and to exit during infection. The connector inserted in lipid bilayer exhibits robust properties and generates extremely sensitive conductance signatures. DNA and RNA can be electrophoretically driven through the channel in a concentration and voltage dependent manner. Information about the structure, length and conformational dynamics can then be deduced by their characteristic dwell times during translocation and by their relative percentage in current blockades. This motor channel further exercises a one-way traffic property for dsDNA translocation from N- to C-terminal with a natural valve mechanism in DNA-packaging. We also demonstrated its utility as a highly sensitive device for capture and fingerprinting of chemicals and biopolymers in real time at extremely low concentrations and in the presence of many contaminants. The phi29 motor channel has potential applications in high-throughput single-pore DNA sequencing, environmental surveillance, athlete drug monitoring, toxin/drug screening, and earlier disease diagnosis.Supporting publications from Guo lab: (1) Nature Nanotechnology. 2009. 4: 765; (2) Nano Letters. 2010, 10: 3620; (3) Molecular Biosystems. 2010. 6:1844 (4) Biomaterials. 2011. 32:8234; (5) Biophysical Journal. 2012. 102:127; (6) ACS Nano. 2012. 6:3251; (7) Nature Protocols. 2013. 8:373; (8) Nano Today. 2013. 8:56; (9) ACS Nano. 2013. 7:9814.
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