The pH-dependent elastic properties of nanoscale DNA films and the resultant bending signals for microcantilever biosensors

The diverse mechanical properties of nanoscale DNA films on solid substrates have a close correlation with complex detection signals of micro-/nano-devices. This paper is devoted to formulating several multiscale models to study the effect of pH-dependent ionic inhomogeneity on the graded elastic properties of nanoscale DNA films and the resultant bending deflections of microcantilever biosensors. First, a modified inverse Debye length is introduced to improve the classical Poisson-Boltzmann equation for the electrical potential of DNA films to consider the inhomogeneous effect of hydrogen ions. Second, the graded characteristics of the particle distribution are taken into consideration for an improvement in Parsegian's mesoscopic potential for both attraction-dominated and repulsion-dominated films. Third, by the improved interchain interaction potential and the thought experiment about the compression of a macroscopic continuum DNA bar, we investigate the diversity of the elastic properties of single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) films due to pH variations. The relevant theoretical predictions quantitatively or qualitatively agree well with the relevant DNA experiments on the electrical potential, film thickness, condensation force, elastic modulus, and microcantilever deflections. The competition between attraction and repulsion among the fixed charges and the free ions endows the DNA film with mechanical properties such as a remarkable size effect and a non-monotonic behavior, and a negative elastic modulus is first revealed in the attraction-dominated ssDNA film. There exists a transition between the pH-sensitive parameter interval and the pH-insensitive one for the bending signals of microcantilevers, which is predominated by the initial stress effect in the DNA film.

Fluidic Grooves on Doped-Ice Surface as Size-Tunable Channels

We propose a new principle for fabrication of size-tunable fluidic nano- and microchannels with a ubiquitous green material, water. Grooves filled with a solution are spontaneously formed on the surface of ice when an appropriate dopant is incorporated. Sucrose doping allows the development of grooves with lengths of 300 μm along the boundaries of ice crystal grains. This paper focuses on controlling the size of the liquid-filled groove and reveals its applicability to size-selective differentiation of nano- and micromaterials. The width of this groove can be varied in a range of 200 nm to 4 μm by adjusting the working temperature of the frozen platform. The channel dimension is reproducible as long as the same frozen condition is employed. We demonstrate the size-selective entrapment of particles as well as the state evaluation of DNA by controlling the physical interference of the ice wall with the electrophoretic migration of particles.

Charge inversion, water splitting, and vortex suppression due to DNA sorption on ion-selective membranes and their ion-current signatures

The physisorption of negatively charged single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) of different lengths onto the surface of anion-exchange membranes is sensitively shown to alter the anion flux through the membrane. At low surface concentrations, the physisorbed DNAs act to suppress an electroconvection vortex instability that drives the anion flux into the membrane and hence reduce the overlimiting current through the membrane. Beyond a critical surface concentration, determined by the total number of phosphate charges on the DNA, the DNA layer becomes a cation-selective membrane, and the combined bipolar membrane has a lower net ion flux, at low voltages, than the original membrane as a result of ion depletion at the junction between the cation- (DNA) and anion-selective membranes. However, beyond a critical voltage that is dependent on the ssDNA coverage, water splitting occurs at the junction to produce a larger overlimiting current than that of the original membrane. These two large opposite effects of polyelectrolyte counterion sorption onto membrane surfaces may be used to eliminate limiting current constraints of ion-selective membranes for liquid fuel cells, dialysis, and desalination as well as to suggest a new low-cost membrane surface assay that can detect and quantify the number of large biomolecules captured by probes functionalized on the membrane surface.