固态纳米孔势阱技术研究单分子结构的变化

固态纳米孔技术是近二十年发展起来的单分子传感技术，它的核心原件是在无机薄膜上制备的一个尺度在纳米量级的小孔。该技术通过电场驱动分子穿孔时产生的离子电流信号变化研究待测分子的性质。它在超长读长的单分子测序，离子、分子输运性质的研究，以及蛋白质的检测等方面有极高的应用前景。目前纳米孔在单分子领域的研究主要是通过分析成百上千的分子穿孔信号来获得分子的信息，分子微小结构的变化会淹没在成百上千的统计信号之中。如何使固态纳米孔技术真正在单个分子水平研究分子的结构变化具有重要的意义。本项目提出一种新的基于固态纳米孔的“纳米势阱”技术。这个技术依靠固态纳米孔中央“局域电场”形成的势阱来捕获单个核小体，利用纳米孔周围形成的“副局域电场”研究该核小体的结构变化。该技术是一个亟待研究的全新领域，它将为研究单个分子的性质提供新的视角，有利于降低单分子研究的门槛，推动未来单分子探测产业发展。

Solid-state nanopores is a single-molecule sensors which has been developed in the last twenty years. The solid-state nanopore is a nanoscale pore fabricated in a thin inorganic membrane. The charged analyte suspended in solution translocate through the nanopore under the electric field, and produce a typical current blockade that reflect the properties of the analyte. The technology has great potential in ultra-long single molecule sequencing, ions/molecules transport mechanism researches, specific protein detection etc. In this proposal, we propose a a solid-state nanopore based trap, which harness the strong, localized electric field generated in and around the solid-state nanopore to trap a mono-nucleosome close to the regime of the nanopore mouth. Meanwhile, the sub-localized electric field region captures the subtle structural change of the trapped molecule. Compared with optical tweezer and magnetic tweezer, the cost of solid-state nanopore based trap are much easier and faster that can democratize the single molecule detection technology and stimulate the development of single molecule industry in the future.