J. Am. Chem. Soc. ：人工离子通道研究重要进展

佚名

北京大学核物理与核技术国家重点实验室王宇钢教授领导的离子束物理与应用课题组与中科院化学所分子科学中心合作，近日在制备人工离子通道方面取得重要进展，相关论文以全文形式发表在近日出版的《美国化学会志》上（J. Am. Chem. Soc. ）。该工作一经网上刊出，立即被6月19日出版的英国《自然》杂志（Nature）列为研究亮点( Research Highlight, Nature, 453, 19, 960, June 2008 )。

该合作研究组的科研人员在经单个高能重离子轰击的高分子材料的基底上，制备出尖端只有几纳米到几十纳米的圆锥形单纳米孔道。然后将具有质子响应性的功能DNA分子马达接枝在纳米孔道内壁上，通过改变环境溶液的pH值，令DNA分子马达发生构象变化，来完成通道的打开和关闭。该工作的设计灵感来源于生物膜上的离子通道，它的开关机制也是利用分子构象变化完成的，被认为可以用来模拟生物膜离子通道。

该工作是一项核科学、化学及生物学的交叉研究，它不仅为仿生智能分子器件体系的研究与开发做了一个很好的开创性范例，同时也为设计用于生物分子筛选和淡水过滤的选择性滤膜提供了重要参考依据。

研究工作得到国家自然科学基金及教育部科学研究重大项目的支持。（生物谷bioon.com）

生物谷推荐原始出处：

J. Am. Chem. Soc. 130 (26), 8345–8350，Yugang Wang，Lei Jiang

Gating of Single Synthetic Nanopores by Proton-Driven DNA Molecular Motors

Fan Xia,^‡ Wei Guo,^† Youdong Mao,^‡ Xu Hou,^‡ Jianming Xue,^† Hongwei Xia,^‡ Lin Wang,^† Yanling Song,^‡ Hang Ji,^§ Qi Ouyang,^§ Yugang Wang,^*^† and Lei Jiang^*^‡

State Key Laboratory of Nuclear Physics and Technology, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, People's Republic of China, Center of Molecular Sciences, Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, People's Republic of China, and Center for Microfluidic and Nanotechnology, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, People's Republic of China

ygwang@pku.edu.cn; jianglei@iccas.ac.cn

Abstract:

Switchable ion channels that are made of membrane proteins play different roles in cellular circuits. Since gating nanopore channels made of proteins can only work in the environment of lipid membrane, they are not fully compatible to the application requirement as a component of those nanodevice systems in which lipid membranes are hard to establish. Here we report a synthetic nanopore−DNA system where single solid-state conical nanopores can be reversibly gated by switching DNA motors immobilized inside the nanopores. High- (on-state) and low- (off-state) conductance states were found within this nanopore−DNA system corresponding to the single-stranded and i-motif structures of the attached DNA motors. The highest gating efficiency indicated as current ratio of on-state versus off-state was found when the length of the attached DNA molecule matched the tip diameter of the nanopore well. This novel nanopore−DNA system, which was gated by collective folding of structured DNA molecules responding to the external stimulus, provided an artificial counterpart of switchable protein-made nanopore channels. The concept of this DNA motor-driven nanopore switch can be used to build novel, biologically inspired nanopore machines with more precisely controlled functions in the near future by replacing the DNA molecules with other functional biomolecules, such as polypeptides or protein enzymes.