Physics Colloquium, May 3 2005

Translocation and Unzipping Kinetics of DNA Molecules using a Nanopore

Amit Meller

Rowland Institute, Harvard University

Negatively charged biopolymers such as DNA and RNA can be electrophoretically driven through a single ~1.5 nm membrane embedded nanopore. By measuring the ion current flowing through the pore when the biopolymer is threaded, we can detect the passage time (translocation) of each DNA molecule. We found that the translocation dynamics is dominated by the DNA-pore interactions that depend strongly on the DNA sequence as well as on its direction of entry inside the pore. In addition we also use our nanopore to unzip structured DNA molecules at the entry to the pore, and study their unzipping kinetics. Our method allows us to apply force directly on the test molecule eliminating the need for molecular linkers. In this talk I will discuss our experiments, and present results from molecular dynamics simulations of our system.

Dr. Meller's Group Web Site

3.30 p.m.,Robert Smith Seminar Room 1080, PRB

Refreshments served at 3:00 p.m., Atrium, PRB