DNA Nanopore-Tethered Gold Needle Electrodes for Channel Current Recording

S Ikarashi and H Akai and H Koiwa and Y Izawa and J Takahashi and T Mabuchi and K Shoji, ACS NANO, 17, 10598-10607 (2023).

DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.3c01565

Synthetic DNA nanopores are attractingattention as alternativesto conventional biological nanopores in nanopore sensors because ofthe high designability of their pore structures and functionability.However, the efficient insertion of DNA nanopores into a planar bilayerlipid membrane (pBLM) remains challenging. Although hydrophobic modificationssuch as the use of cholesterol are required to insert DNA nanoporesinto pBLMs, these modifications also induce negative effects, includingthe undesired aggregation of DNA structures. Herein, we describe anefficient method to insert DNA nanopores into pBLMs and measure thechannel currents of DNA nanopores using a DNA nanopore-tethered goldelectrode. When the pBLM is formed at the electrode tip by immersingthe electrode into a layered bath solution comprising an oil/lipidmixture and an aqueous electrolyte, the electrode-tethered DNA nanoporesare physically inserted into the pBLM. In this study, we designeda DNA nanopore structure that can be immobilized on the gold electrodebased on a reported six-helix bundle DNA nanopore structure and preparedDNA nanopore-tethered gold electrodes. Thereafter, we demonstratedthe channel current measurements of the electrode-tethered DNA nanopores,and a high insertion probability of the DNA nanopores was achieved.We believe that this efficient DNA nanopore insertion method can acceleratethe application of DNA nanopores in stochastic nanopore sensors.

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