Issue 5, 2017

Selective single molecule nanopore sensing of proteins using DNA aptamer-functionalised gold nanoparticles

Abstract

Single molecule detection methods, such as nanopore sensors have found increasing importance in applications ranging from gaining a better understanding of biophysical processes to technology driven solutions such as DNA sequencing. However, challenges remain especially in relation to improving selectivity to probe specific targets or to alternatively enable detection of smaller molecules such as small-sized proteins with a sufficiently high signal-to-noise ratio. In this article, we propose a solution to these technological challenges by using DNA aptamer-modified gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) that act as a molecular carrier through the nanopore sensor. We show that this approach offers numerous advantages including: high levels of selectivity, efficient capture from a complex mixture, enhanced signal, minimized analyte-sensor surface interactions, and finally can be used to enhance the event detection rate. This is demonstrated by incorporating a lysozyme binding aptamer to a 5 nm AuNP carrier to selectively probe lysozyme within a cocktail of proteins. We show that nanopores can reveal sub-complex molecular information, by discriminating the AuNP from the protein analyte, indicating the potential use of this technology for single molecule analysis of different molecular analytes specifically bound to AuNP.

Graphical abstract: Selective single molecule nanopore sensing of proteins using DNA aptamer-functionalised gold nanoparticles

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Edge Article
Submitted
26 yan 2017
Accepted
14 mar 2017
First published
20 mar 2017
This article is Open Access

All publication charges for this article have been paid for by the Royal Society of Chemistry
Creative Commons BY-NC license

Chem. Sci., 2017,8, 3905-3912

Selective single molecule nanopore sensing of proteins using DNA aptamer-functionalised gold nanoparticles

X. Lin, A. P. Ivanov and J. B. Edel, Chem. Sci., 2017, 8, 3905 DOI: 10.1039/C7SC00415J

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications, without requesting further permission from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given and it is not used for commercial purposes.

To request permission to reproduce material from this article in a commercial publication, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party commercial publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements