Genomic Pathogen Typing Using Solid-State Nanopores

In clinical settings, rapid and accurate characterization of pathogens is essential for effective treatment of patients; however, subtle genetic changes in pathogens which elude traditional phenotypic typing may confer dangerous pathogenic properties such as toxicity, antibiotic resistance, or virulence. Existing options for molecular typing techniques characterize the critical genomic changes that distinguish harmful and benign strains, yet the well-established approaches, in particular those that rely on electrophoretic separation of nucleic acid fragments on a gel, have room for only incremental future improvements in speed, cost, and complexity. Solid-state nanopores are an emerging class of single-molecule sensors that can electrophoretically characterize charged biopolymers, and which offer significant advantages in terms of sample and reagent requirements, readout speed, parallelization, and automation. We present here the first application of nanopores for single-molecule molecular typing using length based “fingerprints” of critical sites in bacterial genomes. This technique is highly adaptable for detection of different types of genetic variation; as we illustrate using prototypical examples including Mycobacterium tuberculosis and methicillin-resistant Streptococcus aureus, the solid-state nanopore diagnostic platform may be used to detect large insertions or deletions, small insertions or deletions, and even single-nucleotide variations in bacterial DNA. We further show that Bayesian classification of test samples can provide highly confident pathogen typing results based on only a few tens of independent single-molecule events, making this method extremely sensitive and statistically robust.     

Multi-nanopore force spectroscopy for DNA analysis

The need for low-cost DNA sequence detection in clinical applications is driving development of new technologies. We demonstrate a method for detection of mutations in a DNA sequence purely by electronic means, and without need for fluorescent labeling. Our method uses an array of nanopores to perform synchronized single-molecule force spectroscopy measurements over many molecules in parallel, yielding detailed information on the kinetics of hundreds of molecule dissociations in a single measurement.     

Mechanisms of nucleic acid translocases: lessons from structural biology and single-molecule biophysics

Enzymes that translocate nucleic acids using ATP hydrolysis include DNA and RNA helicases, viral genome packaging motors and chromatin remodeling ATPases. Recent structural analysis, in conjunction with single-molecule studies, has revealed a wealth of new insights into how these enzymes use ATP-driven conformational changes to move on nucleic acids.     

Solid-state nanopores for biosensing with submolecular resolution

Biological cell membranes contain various types of ion channels and transmembrane pores in the 1-100 nm range, which are vital for cellular function. Individual channels can be probed electrically, as demonstrated by Neher and Sakmann in 1976 using the patch-clamp technique [Neher and Sakmann (1976) Nature 260, 799-802]. Since the 1990s, this work has inspired the use of protein or solid-state nanopores as inexpensive and ultrafast sensors for the detection of biomolecules, including DNA, RNA and proteins, but with particular focus on DNA sequencing. Solid-state nanopores in particular have the advantage that the pore size can be tailored to the analyte in question and that they can be modified using semi-conductor processing technology. This establishes solid-state nanopores as a new class of single-molecule biosensor devices, in some cases with submolecular resolution. In the present review, we discuss a few of the most important recent developments in this field and how they might be applied to studying protein-protein and protein-DNA interactions or in the context of ultra-fast DNA sequencing.     

Molecular dynamics simulations of DNA within a nanopore: arginine-phosphate tethering and a binding/sliding mechanism for translocation

Protein nanopores show great potential as low-cost detectors in DNA sequencing devices. To date, research has largely focused on the staphylococcal pore α-hemolysin (αHL). In the present study, we have developed simplified models of the wild-type αHL pore and various mutants in order to study the translocation dynamics of single-stranded DNA under the influence of an applied electric field. The model nanopores reflect the experimentally measured conductance values in planar lipid bilayers. We show that interactions between rings of cationic amino acids and DNA backbone phosphates result in metastable tethering of nucleic acid molecules within the pore, leading us to propose a "binding and sliding" mechanism for translocation. We also observe folding of DNA into nonlinear conformational intermediates during passage through the confined nanopore environment. Despite adopting nonlinear conformations, the DNA hexamer always exits the pore in the same orientation as it enters (3' to 5') in our simulations. The observations from our simulations help to rationalize experimentally determined trends in residual current and translocation efficiency for αHL and its mutants.     

数字PCR技术在核酸标准物质研制中的应用

在标准物质研制领域,生物标准物质的研制逐渐成为了研究热点,同时基于核酸的检测技术的开发与应用又推动了核酸标准物质的进程。核酸标准物质需要高级别、精准的定值方法,数字PCR作为单分子定量技术得到了广泛的应用。数字PCR是一种测定核酸分子的绝对定量方法,如微滴式数字PCR是采用油包水形成的微滴作为反应室,将含有DNA模板的反应溶液分配到大量独立的反应室中进行扩增反应,再通过统计反应室中的阳性信号来定量DNA的拷贝数,从而达到精确定量核酸拷贝数的目的。综述了近年来关于数字PCR及其在核酸标准物质研究领域的最新应用进展,重点综述了其在转基因检测、医疗诊断等领域的应用进展,以期为核酸标准物质的研制提供参考。     

Single-molecule perspectives on helicase mechanisms and functions

Helicases are a diverse group of molecular motors that utilize energy derived from the hydrolysis of nucleoside triphosphates (NTPs) to unwind and translocate along nucleic acids. These enzymes play critical roles in nearly all aspects of nucleic acid metabolism, and consequently, a detailed understanding of helicase mechanisms at the molecular level is essential. Over the past few decades, single-molecule techniques, such as optical tweezers, magnetic tweezers, laminar flow, fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET), and DNA curtains, have proved to be powerful tools to investigate the functional properties of both DNA and RNA helicases. These approaches allow researchers to manipulate single helicase molecules, perturb their free energy landscape to probe the chemo-mechanical activities of these motors, and to detect the conformational changes of helicases during unwinding. Furthermore, these techniques also provide the capability to distinguish helicase heterogeneity and monitor helicase motion at nanometer spatial and millisecond temporal resolutions, ultimately providing new insights into the mechanisms that could not be resolved by ensemble assays. This review outlines the single-molecule techniques that have been utilized for measurements of helicase activities and discusses helicase mechanisms with a focus on functional and mechanistic insights revealed through single-molecule investigations in the past five years.     

Single polypeptide detection using a translocon EXP2 nanopore

DNA sequencing using nanopores has already been achieved and commercialized; the next step in advancing nanopore technology is towards protein sequencing. Although trials have been reported for discriminating the 20 amino acids using biological nanopores and short peptide carriers, it remains challenging. The size compatibility between nanopores and peptides is one of the issues to be addressed. Therefore, exploring biological nanopores that are suitable for peptide sensing is key in achieving amino acid sequence determination. Here, we focus on EXP2, the transmembrane protein of a translocon from malaria parasites, and describe its pore-forming properties in the lipid bilayer. EXP2 mainly formed a nanopore with a diameter of 2.5 nm assembled from 7 monomers. Using the EXP2 nanopore allowed us to detect poly-L-lysine (PLL) at a single-molecule level. Furthermore, the EXP2 nanopore has sufficient resolution to distinguish the difference in molecular weight between two individual PLL, long PLL (Mw: 30,000–70,000) and short PLL (Mw: 10,000). Our results contribute to the accumulation of information for peptide-detectable nanopores.     

DNA computing using single-molecule hybridization detection

DNA computing aims at using nucleic acids for computing. Since micromolar DNA solutions can act as billions of parallel nanoprocessors, DNA computers can in theory solve optimization problems that require vast search spaces. However, the actual parallelism currently being achieved is at least a hundred million-fold lower than the number of DNA molecules used. This is due to the quantity of DNA molecules of one species that is required to produce a detectable output to the computations. In order to miniaturize the computation and considerably reduce the amount of DNA needed, we have combined DNA computing with single-molecule detection. Reliable hybridization detection was achieved at the level of single DNA molecules with fluorescence cross-correlation spectroscopy. To illustrate the use of this approach, we implemented a DNA-based computation and solved a 4-variable 4-clause instance of the computationally hard Satisfiability (SAT) problem.     

The nanopore connection to cell membrane unitary permeability

Artificial nanopores have recently emerged as versatile tools for analyzing and sorting single molecules at high speed. However, the biological cell has already developed a large set of sophisticated protein nanopores that are able to selectively translocate all types of molecules through membranes. Therefore, hybrid devices combining artifical solid-state with biomimetic protein nanopores appear to us as a particularly promising approach to the creation of powerful diagnostic, preparative and therapeutic devices. Here, we discuss a technique, optical single-transporter recording (OSTR), in which arrays of artificial micropores and nanopores are employed to analyze protein nanopores of cellular membranes. After briefly summarizing some salient features of OSTR, the technique is compared with the electrical patch clamp method and the first results of our efforts to amalgamate optical and electrical recording are described. Finally, prospects for combining OSTR with 4Pi microscopy, single-molecule fluorescence spectroscopy and fluorescence correlation spectroscopy are discussed.     

Detecting DNA Depurination with Solid-State Nanopores

Among the different types of DNA damage that occur endogenously in the cell, depurination is especially prevalent. These lesions can initiate mutagenesis and have been implicated in a variety of diseases, including cancer. Here, we demonstrate a new approach for the detection of depurination at the single-molecule scale using solid-state nanopores. We induce depurination in short duplex DNA using acidic conditions and observe that the presence of apurinic sites results in significantly slower dynamics during electrokinetic translocation. This procedure may be valuable as a diagnostic for in situ quantification of DNA depurination.     

Universal digital high-resolution melt: a novel approach to broad-based profiling of heterogeneous biological samples

Comprehensive profiling of nucleic acids in genetically heterogeneous samples is important for clinical and basic research applications. Universal digital high-resolution melt (U-dHRM) is a new approach to broad-based PCR diagnostics and profiling technologies that can overcome issues of poor sensitivity due to contaminating nucleic acids and poor specificity due to primer or probe hybridization inaccuracies for single nucleotide variations. The U-dHRM approach uses broad-based primers or ligated adapter sequences to universally amplify all nucleic acid molecules in a heterogeneous sample, which have been partitioned, as in digital PCR. Extensive assay optimization enables direct sequence identification by algorithm-based matching of melt curve shape and Tm to a database of known sequence-specific melt curves. We show that single-molecule detection and single nucleotide sensitivity is possible. The feasibility and utility of U-dHRM is demonstrated through detection of bacteria associated with polymicrobial blood infection and microRNAs (miRNAs) associated with host response to infection. U-dHRM using broad-based 16S rRNA gene primers demonstrates universal single cell detection of bacterial pathogens, even in the presence of larger amounts of contaminating bacteria; U-dHRM using universally adapted Lethal-7 miRNAs in a heterogeneous mixture showcases the single copy sensitivity and single nucleotide specificity of this approach.     

Biomolecular computation with molecular beacons for quantitative analysis of target nucleic acids

Molecular beacons are efficient and useful tools for quantitative detection of specific target nucleic acids. Thanks to their simple protocol, molecular beacons have great potential as substrates for biomolecular computing. Here we present a molecular beacon-based biomolecular computing method for quantitative detection and analysis of target nucleic acids. Whereas the conventional quantitative assays using fluorescent dyes have been designed for single target detection or multiplexed detection, the proposed method enables us not only to detect multiple targets but also to compute their quantitative information by weighted-sum of the targets. The detection and computation are performed on a molecular level simultaneously, and the outputs are detected as fluorescence signals. Experimental results show the feasibility and effectiveness of our weighted detection and linear combination method using molecular beacons. Our method can serve as a primitive operation of molecular pattern analysis, and we demonstrate successful binary classifications of molecular patterns made of synthetic oligonucleotide DNA molecules.     

Development of a sensitive and rapid nucleic acid assay with tetraphenyl porphyrinatoiron chloride by a resonance light scattering technique.

Based on the interaction between nucleic acids and tetraphenyl porphyrinatoiron chloride (FeTPPCl), a novel method for the determination of nucleic acids at the nanogram level has been developed. Under the optimum conditions, the weak resonance light scattering (RLS) intensity of FeTPPCl was greatly enhanced by nucleic acids and the enhanced RLS intensity was proportional to the concentration of nucleic acids in the range 0.02-2.8 microg/mL for calf thymus DNA, 0.05-3.3 microg/mL for fish sperm DNA and 0.07-4.5 microg/mL for yeast RNA. The detection limits (3sigma) were 2.9 ng/mL for calf thymus DNA, 3.9 ng/mL for fish sperm DNA and 5.2 ng/mL for yeast RNA. Almost no interference could be observed from proteins, nucleosides and most of the metal ions. The proposed method showed good reliability, sensitivity, rapidity and reproducibility when applied to the determination of nucleic acids in synthetic and biochemical samples. The time savings make this method suitable for large routine analyses.     

Monitoring Protein Adsorption with Solid-state Nanopores

Solid-state nanopores have been used to perform measurements at the single-molecule level to examine the local structure and flexibility of nucleic acids ^1-6, the unfolding of proteins ⁷, and binding affinity of different ligands ⁸. By coupling these nanopores to the resistive-pulse technique ^9-12, such measurements can be done under a wide variety of conditions and without the need for labeling ³. In the resistive-pulse technique, an ionic salt solution is introduced on both sides of the nanopore. Therefore, ions are driven from one side of the chamber to the other by an applied transmembrane potential, resulting in a steady current. The partitioning of an analyte into the nanopore causes a well-defined deflection in this current, which can be analyzed to extract single-molecule information. Using this technique, the adsorption of single proteins to the nanopore walls can be monitored under a wide range of conditions ¹³. Protein adsorption is growing in importance, because as microfluidic devices shrink in size, the interaction of these systems with single proteins becomes a concern. This protocol describes a rapid assay for protein binding to nitride films, which can readily be extended to other thin films amenable to nanopore drilling, or to functionalized nitride surfaces. A variety of proteins may be explored under a wide range of solutions and denaturing conditions. Additionally, this protocol may be used to explore more basic problems using nanopore spectroscopy.     

Postcolumn nucleic acid intercalation for the fluorescent detection of nucleic acids using ion pair reverse phase high-performance liquid chromatography

Here we report a simple and effective procedure enabling the fluorescent detection of nucleic acids following the rapid, high-resolution separation using ion pair reverse phase chromatography. This approach uses postcolumn nucleic acid intercalation of fluorescent dyes with subsequent fluorescent detection, demonstrating more than a 1000-fold increase in sensitivity in the detection of nucleic acids when compared with traditional UV detection. Moreover, a wide range of intercalating dyes can be incorporated, including those known to disrupt the structure of the nucleic acids, thereby enabling the sensitive detection of DNA and RNA with no adverse effect on resolution of the nucleic acids during ion pair reverse phase chromatography. In addition, such approaches allow one to readily distinguish single-stranded DNA from double-stranded DNA following their separation using ion pair reverse phase high-performance liquid chromatography.     

Nanopore-based Fourth-generation DNA Sequencing Technology

Nanopore-based sequencers, as the fourth-generation DNA sequencing technology, have the potential to quickly and reliably sequence the entire human genome for less than $1000, and possibly for even less than $100. The single-molecule techniques used by this technology allow us to further study the interaction between DNA and protein, as well as between protein and protein.Nanopore analysis opens a new door to molecular biology investigation at the single-molecule scale.In this article, we have reviewed academic achievements in nanopore technology from the past as well as the latest advances, including both biological and solid-state nanopores, and discussed their recent and potential applications.     

Single-molecule fluorescence of nucleic acids

Less than a decade old, single-molecule fluorescence of nucleic acids has rapidly become an important tool in the arsenal of biological probes. A variety of novel approaches to investigate conformational dynamics, catalytic mechanisms, folding pathways and protein-nucleic-acid interactions have recently been devised for nucleic acids using this technique. Combined with biomechanical tools and ensemble measurements, single-molecule fluorescence methods extend our ability to observe and understand biomolecules and complex biological processes.     

Enzyme-Free Detection of Mutations in Cancer DNA Using Synthetic Oligonucleotide Probes and Fluorescence Microscopy

Background

Rapid reliable diagnostics of DNA mutations are highly desirable in research and clinical assays. Current development in this field goes simultaneously in two directions: 1) high-throughput methods, and 2) portable assays. Non-enzymatic approaches are attractive for both types of methods since they would allow rapid and relatively inexpensive detection of nucleic acids. Modern fluorescence microscopy is having a huge impact on detection of biomolecules at previously unachievable resolution. However, no straightforward methods to detect DNA in a non-enzymatic way using fluorescence microscopy and nucleic acid analogues have been proposed so far.

Methods and Results

Here we report a novel enzyme-free approach to efficiently detect cancer mutations. This assay includes gene-specific target enrichment followed by annealing to oligonucleotides containing locked nucleic acids (LNAs) and finally, detection by fluorescence microscopy. The LNA containing probes display high binding affinity and specificity to DNA containing mutations, which allows for the detection of mutation abundance with an intercalating EvaGreen dye. We used a second probe, which increases the overall number of base pairs in order to produce a higher fluorescence signal by incorporating more dye molecules. Indeed we show here that using EvaGreen dye and LNA probes, genomic DNA containing BRAF V600E mutation could be detected by fluorescence microscopy at low femtomolar concentrations. Notably, this was at least 1000-fold above the potential detection limit.

Conclusion

Overall, the novel assay we describe could become a new approach to rapid, reliable and enzyme-free diagnostics of cancer or other associated DNA targets. Importantly, stoichiometry of wild type and mutant targets is conserved in our assay, which allows for an accurate estimation of mutant abundance when the detection limit requirement is met. Using fluorescence microscopy, this approach presents the opportunity to detect DNA at single-molecule resolution and directly in the biological sample of choice.