Single-molecule analysis of DNA structures using nanopore sensors

Abstract

Nanopore has been studied for a lot of applications in DNA sequencing, multifarious single-molecule detection, detection of molecular conformational change, and biomolecular interaction. There are many categories of nanopores, such as biological nanopores, solid-state nanopores and newly developed hybrid nanopores. All of them play an important role in the detection of DNA structures because of their unique properties, such as the nano-scale pore size, dynamic detection in solution, and low sample loading. This review elaborates on the detection of several DNA structures by nanopore, including the dynamic analysis of conformational changes, and the factors that promote conformational changes. In addition, the detection of DNA origami, a type of artificial structured DNA, is also discussed. In these tests, current signals were produced by the interaction of analyte and nanopore. The signals were often studied by the statistical features of the currents’ amplitude, duration time, or both of them. Finally, taking advantage of the nanopore's ability to detect the conformational changes of these folds, the application of DNA structures detection in nanopore is introduced.