Nanometer-scale pores, particularly bacterial toxins, have demonstrated the capability to detect and characterize a wide range of analytes including ions,1 small molecules,2 polymers,3, nucleic acids,4 and proteins.5  Our laboratory has recently demonstrated an approach to utilizing these nanopores as size selective sensors for macromolecules in which the nanopore is used like a solution-phase mass spectrometer (SMMS) with resolution sufficient to achieve baseline resolution for a poly(ethylene glycol) mixture.6-8  The detector response is dependent on both the size of the molecule, and its chemical interactions with ions from solution.  This accounts for the ability to fully characterize a solution of poly(ethylene glycol), but not dextran of similar size.  This presentation will focus on the development of the SMMS sensor through the rational development of  chemical interactions both within the pore and between soluble molecules. (1)Kasianowicz, J. J.; Bezrukov, S. M. Biophys. J. 1995 , 69, 94.(2)Gu, L.-Q.; Bayley, H. Biophys. J. 2000 , 79, 1967.(3)Zimmerberg, J.; Parsegian, V. A. Nature 1986 , 323, 36.(4)Kasianowicz, J. J.; Brandin, E.; Branton, D.; Deamer, D. W. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 1996 , 93, 13770.(5)Oukhaled, G.; Mathe, J.; Biance, A.-L.; Bacri, L.; Betton, J.-M.; Lairez, D.; Pelta, J.; Auvray, L. Phys. Rev. Lett. 2007 , 98, 158101.(6)Robertson, J. W. F.; Rodrigues, C. G.; Stanford, V. M.; Rubinson, K. A.; Krasilnikov, O. V.; Kasianowicz, J. J. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 2007 , 104, 8207.(7)Reiner, J. E.; Kasianowicz, J. J.; Nablo, B. J.; Robertson, J. W. F. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 2010 , 107, 12080.(8)Balijepalli, A.; Robertson, J. W. F.; Reiner, J. E.; Kasianowicz, J. J.; Pastor, R. W. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2013 , 135, 7064.

Effects of equilibrium chemistry on the selectivity of nanopore biosensors

248th National Meeting (2014)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.