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Ju H, Cheng L, Li M, Mei K, He S, Jia C, Guo X. Single-Molecule Electrical Profiling of Peptides and Proteins. ADVANCED SCIENCE (WEINHEIM, BADEN-WURTTEMBERG, GERMANY) 2024; 11:e2401877. [PMID: 38639403 PMCID: PMC11267281 DOI: 10.1002/advs.202401877] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/22/2024] [Revised: 04/03/2024] [Indexed: 04/20/2024]
Abstract
In recent decades, there has been a significant increase in the application of single-molecule electrical analysis platforms in studying proteins and peptides. These advanced analysis methods have the potential for deep investigation of enzymatic working mechanisms and accurate monitoring of dynamic changes in protein configurations, which are often challenging to achieve in ensemble measurements. In this work, the prominent research progress in peptide and protein-related studies are surveyed using electronic devices with single-molecule/single-event sensitivity, including single-molecule junctions, single-molecule field-effect transistors, and nanopores. In particular, the successful commercial application of nanopores in DNA sequencing has made it one of the most promising techniques in protein sequencing at the single-molecule level. From single peptides to protein complexes, the correlation between their electrical characteristics, structures, and biological functions is gradually being established. This enables to distinguish different molecular configurations of these biomacromolecules through real-time electrical monitoring of their life activities, significantly improving the understanding of the mechanisms underlying various life processes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hongyu Ju
- School of Pharmaceutical Science and TechnologyTianjin UniversityTianjin300072P. R. China
- Center of Single‐Molecule SciencesInstitute of Modern OpticsFrontiers Science Center for New Organic MatterTianjin Key Laboratory of Microscale Optical Information Science and TechnologyCollege of Electronic Information and Optical EngineeringNankai UniversityTianjin300350P. R. China
| | - Li Cheng
- Center of Single‐Molecule SciencesInstitute of Modern OpticsFrontiers Science Center for New Organic MatterTianjin Key Laboratory of Microscale Optical Information Science and TechnologyCollege of Electronic Information and Optical EngineeringNankai UniversityTianjin300350P. R. China
| | - Mengmeng Li
- Center of Single‐Molecule SciencesInstitute of Modern OpticsFrontiers Science Center for New Organic MatterTianjin Key Laboratory of Microscale Optical Information Science and TechnologyCollege of Electronic Information and Optical EngineeringNankai UniversityTianjin300350P. R. China
| | - Kunrong Mei
- School of Pharmaceutical Science and TechnologyTianjin UniversityTianjin300072P. R. China
| | - Suhang He
- Center of Single‐Molecule SciencesInstitute of Modern OpticsFrontiers Science Center for New Organic MatterTianjin Key Laboratory of Microscale Optical Information Science and TechnologyCollege of Electronic Information and Optical EngineeringNankai UniversityTianjin300350P. R. China
| | - Chuancheng Jia
- Center of Single‐Molecule SciencesInstitute of Modern OpticsFrontiers Science Center for New Organic MatterTianjin Key Laboratory of Microscale Optical Information Science and TechnologyCollege of Electronic Information and Optical EngineeringNankai UniversityTianjin300350P. R. China
| | - Xuefeng Guo
- Center of Single‐Molecule SciencesInstitute of Modern OpticsFrontiers Science Center for New Organic MatterTianjin Key Laboratory of Microscale Optical Information Science and TechnologyCollege of Electronic Information and Optical EngineeringNankai UniversityTianjin300350P. R. China
- Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular SciencesNational Biomedical Imaging CenterCollege of Chemistry and Molecular EngineeringPeking UniversityBeijing100871P. R. China
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Gorenskaia E, Low PJ. Methods for the analysis, interpretation, and prediction of single-molecule junction conductance behaviour. Chem Sci 2024; 15:9510-9556. [PMID: 38939131 PMCID: PMC11206205 DOI: 10.1039/d4sc00488d] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/22/2024] [Accepted: 05/06/2024] [Indexed: 06/29/2024] Open
Abstract
This article offers a broad overview of measurement methods in the field of molecular electronics, with a particular focus on the most common single-molecule junction fabrication techniques, the challenges in data analysis and interpretation of single-molecule junction current-distance traces, and a summary of simulations and predictive models aimed at establishing robust structure-property relationships of use in the further development of molecular electronics.
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Affiliation(s)
- Elena Gorenskaia
- School of Molecular Sciences, University of Western Australia 35 Stirling Highway Crawley Western Australia 6026 Australia
| | - Paul J Low
- School of Molecular Sciences, University of Western Australia 35 Stirling Highway Crawley Western Australia 6026 Australia
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Turvey MW, Gabriel KN, Lee W, Taulbee JJ, Kim JK, Chen S, Lau CJ, Kattan RE, Pham JT, Majumdar S, Garcia D, Weiss GA, Collins PG. Single-molecule Taq DNA polymerase dynamics. SCIENCE ADVANCES 2022; 8:eabl3522. [PMID: 35275726 PMCID: PMC8916733 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abl3522] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/08/2021] [Accepted: 01/21/2022] [Indexed: 06/14/2023]
Abstract
Taq DNA polymerase functions at elevated temperatures with fast conformational dynamics-regimes previously inaccessible to mechanistic, single-molecule studies. Here, single-walled carbon nanotube transistors recorded the motions of Taq molecules processing matched or mismatched template-deoxynucleotide triphosphate pairs from 22° to 85°C. By using four enzyme orientations, the whole-enzyme closures of nucleotide incorporations were distinguished from more rapid, 20-μs closures of Taq's fingers domain testing complementarity and orientation. On average, one transient closure was observed for every nucleotide binding event; even complementary substrate pairs averaged five transient closures between each catalytic incorporation at 72°C. The rate and duration of the transient closures and the catalytic events had almost no temperature dependence, leaving all of Taq's temperature sensitivity to its rate-determining open state.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mackenzie W. Turvey
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA 92697-4575, USA
| | - Kristin N. Gabriel
- Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA 92697-3900, USA
| | - Wonbae Lee
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA 92697-4575, USA
| | - Jeffrey J. Taulbee
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA 92697-4575, USA
| | - Joshua K. Kim
- Department of Chemistry, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA 92697-2025, USA
| | - Silu Chen
- Department of Chemistry, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA 92697-2025, USA
| | - Calvin J. Lau
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA 92697-4575, USA
| | - Rebecca E. Kattan
- Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA 92697-3900, USA
| | - Jenifer T. Pham
- Department of Chemistry, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA 92697-2025, USA
| | - Sudipta Majumdar
- Department of Chemistry, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA 92697-2025, USA
| | | | - Gregory A. Weiss
- Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA 92697-3900, USA
- Department of Chemistry, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA 92697-2025, USA
- Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA 92697-3958, USA
| | - Philip G. Collins
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA 92697-4575, USA
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Côté S, Bouilly D, Mousseau N. The molecular origin of the electrostatic gating of single-molecule field-effect biosensors investigated by molecular dynamics simulations. Phys Chem Chem Phys 2022; 24:4174-4186. [PMID: 35113103 DOI: 10.1039/d1cp04626h] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/16/2022]
Abstract
Field-effect biosensors (bioFETs) offer a novel way to measure the kinetics of biomolecular events such as protein function and DNA hybridization at the single-molecule level on a wide range of time scales. These devices generate an electrical current whose fluctuations are correlated to the kinetics of the biomolecule under study. BioFETs are indeed highly sensitive to changes in the electrostatic potential (ESP) generated by the biomolecule. Here, using all-atom solvent explicit molecular dynamics simulations, we further investigate the molecular origin of the variation of this ESP for two prototypical cases of proteins or nucleic acids attached to a carbon nanotube bioFET: the function of the lysozyme protein and the hybridization of a 10-nt DNA sequence, as previously done experimentally. Our results show that the ESP changes significantly on the surface of the carbon nanotube as the state of these two biomolecules changes. More precisely, the ESP distributions calculated for these molecular states explain well the magnitude of the conductance fluctuations measured experimentally. The dependence of the ESP with salt concentration is found to agree with the reduced conductance fluctuations observed experimentally for the lysozyme, but to differ for the case of DNA, suggesting that other mechanisms might be at play in this case. Furthermore, we show that the carbon nanotube does not impact significantly the structural stability of the lysozyme, corroborating that the kinetic rates measured using bioFETs are similar to those measured by other techniques. For DNA, we find that the structural ensemble of the single-stranded DNA is significantly impacted by the presence of the nanotube, which, combined with the ESP analysis, suggests a stronger DNA-device interplay. Overall, our simulations strengthen the comprehension of the inner working of field-effect biosensors used for single-molecule kinetics measurements on proteins and nucleic acids.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sébastien Côté
- Département de Physique, Faculté des Arts et des Sciences, Université de Montréal, Montréal, Canada. .,Département de Physique, Cégep de Saint-Jérôme, Saint-Jérôme, Canada
| | - Delphine Bouilly
- Département de Physique, Faculté des Arts et des Sciences, Université de Montréal, Montréal, Canada. .,Institut de recherche en immunologie et cancérologie (IRIC), Université de Montréal, Montréal, Canada.
| | - Normand Mousseau
- Département de Physique, Faculté des Arts et des Sciences, Université de Montréal, Montréal, Canada.
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Molecular electronics sensors on a scalable semiconductor chip: A platform for single-molecule measurement of binding kinetics and enzyme activity. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2022; 119:2112812119. [PMID: 35074874 PMCID: PMC8812571 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2112812119] [Citation(s) in RCA: 20] [Impact Index Per Article: 10.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 11/23/2021] [Indexed: 12/26/2022] Open
Abstract
Detection of molecular interactions is the foundation for many important biotechnology applications in society and industry, such as drug discovery, diagnostics, and DNA sequencing. This report describes a broadly applicable platform for detecting molecular interactions at the single-molecule scale, in real-time, label-free, and potentially highly multiplexable fashion, using single-molecule sensors on a highly scalable semiconductor sensor array chip. Such chips are both practically manufacturable in the near term, and have a durable long-term scaling roadmap, thus providing an ideal way to bring the power of modern chip technology to the broad area of biosensing. This work also realizes a 50-year-old scientific vision of integrating single molecules into electronic chips to achieve the ultimate miniaturization of electronics. For nearly 50 years, the vision of using single molecules in circuits has been seen as providing the ultimate miniaturization of electronic chips. An advanced example of such a molecular electronics chip is presented here, with the important distinction that the molecular circuit elements play the role of general-purpose single-molecule sensors. The device consists of a semiconductor chip with a scalable array architecture. Each array element contains a synthetic molecular wire assembled to span nanoelectrodes in a current monitoring circuit. A central conjugation site is used to attach a single probe molecule that defines the target of the sensor. The chip digitizes the resulting picoamp-scale current-versus-time readout from each sensor element of the array at a rate of 1,000 frames per second. This provides detailed electrical signatures of the single-molecule interactions between the probe and targets present in a solution-phase test sample. This platform is used to measure the interaction kinetics of single molecules, without the use of labels, in a massively parallel fashion. To demonstrate broad applicability, examples are shown for probe molecule binding, including DNA oligos, aptamers, antibodies, and antigens, and the activity of enzymes relevant to diagnostics and sequencing, including a CRISPR/Cas enzyme binding a target DNA, and a DNA polymerase enzyme incorporating nucleotides as it copies a DNA template. All of these applications are accomplished with high sensitivity and resolution, on a manufacturable, scalable, all-electronic semiconductor chip device, thereby bringing the power of modern chips to these diverse areas of biosensing.
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Qin Z, Peng R, Baravik IK, Liu X. Fighting COVID-19: Integrated Micro- and Nanosystems for Viral Infection Diagnostics. MATTER 2020; 3:628-651. [PMID: 32838297 PMCID: PMC7346839 DOI: 10.1016/j.matt.2020.06.015] [Citation(s) in RCA: 62] [Impact Index Per Article: 15.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/16/2023]
Abstract
The pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) highlights the importance of rapid and sensitive diagnostics of viral infection that enables the efficient tracing of cases and the implementation of public health measures for disease containment. The immediate actions from both academia and industry have led to the development of many COVID-19 diagnostic systems that have secured fast-track regulatory approvals and have been serving our healthcare frontlines since the early stage of the pandemic. On diagnostic technologies, many of these clinically validated systems have significantly benefited from the recent advances in micro- and nanotechnologies in terms of platform design, analytical method, and system integration and miniaturization. The continued development of new diagnostic platforms integrating micro- and nanocomponents will address some of the shortcomings we have witnessed in the existing COVID-19 diagnostic systems. This Perspective reviews the previous and ongoing research efforts on developing integrated micro- and nanosystems for nucleic acid-based virus detection, and highlights promising technologies that could provide better solutions for the diagnosis of COVID-19 and other viral infectious diseases. With the summary and outlook of this rapidly evolving research field, we hope to inspire more research and development activities to better prepare our society for future public health crises.
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Affiliation(s)
- Zhen Qin
- Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5S 3G8, Canada
| | - Ran Peng
- Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5S 3G8, Canada
| | - Ilina Kolker Baravik
- Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5S 3G8, Canada
| | - Xinyu Liu
- Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5S 3G8, Canada
- Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5S 3G9, Canada
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Barnes B, Brozena A, Wang Y. Chemically tailored carbon nanotubes as a new toolbox for biomedicine and beyond. THE BIOCHEMIST 2019; 41:10-13. [PMID: 32788821 PMCID: PMC7418926 DOI: 10.1042/bio04104010] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/17/2022]
Abstract
Like molecules of DNA, carbon nanotubes (CNTs) can display a variety of structures, but all conduct electrons and feature unique optical properties. In this perspective article, we highlight several recent works that bridge these two seemingly distant worlds. We illustrate the largely untapped potential of CNTs for biological research by exploring several developing biomedical applications utilizing nanotube semiconductors, including field effect transistor biosensors that couple high sensitivity with selectivity, and fluorophores for deep-tissue imaging whose excitation and emission wavelengths can be tuned throughout the near-IR II window simply by using defect chemistry.
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