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UNIVERSITY OF BUCHAREST
FACULTY OF PHYSICS Guest
2024-11-22 2:14 |
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Conference: Bucharest University Faculty of Physics 2010 Meeting
Section: Biophysics and Medical Physics;Electricity and Magnetism
Title:
Single-molecule Science with A Nanopore:
Inspiration from Nature
Authors:
Liviu Movileanu
Affiliation:
Syracuse University, USA
E-mail
lmovilea@physics.syr.edu
Keywords:
single-molecule, nanopore, protein translocation, nanomedicine
Abstract:
A nanopore may act as an amazingly versatile single-molecule probe that can be employed to reveal several important features of nucleic acids and proteins. The underlying principle of nanopore probe techniques is simple: the application of a voltage bias across an electrically insulated membrane enables the measurement of a tiny picoamp-scale transmembrane current through a single hole of nanometer size, called a nanopore. Each molecule, translocating through the nanopore, produces a distinctive current blockade, the nature of which depends on its biophysical properties as well as the molecule-nanopore interaction.
Such an approach proves to be quite powerful, because single small molecules and biopolymers are examined at very high spatial and temporal resolutions. I will discuss our recent work that provided a mechanistic understanding of the forces that drive protein translocation through a nanopore. These measurements facilitate the detection and exploration of the conformational fluctuations of single molecules and the energetic requirements for their transition from one state to another.
I will also describe our recent strategies for engineering new functional nanopores, in organic and silicon-based materials, with properties that are not encountered in nature. From a practical point of view, this methodology shows promise for the integration of engineered nanopores into nanofluidic devices, which would provide a new generation of research tools in nanomedicine and high-throughput devices for molecular biomedical diagnosis.
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