TCB Publications - Abstract

Utkur M. Mirsaidov, Winston Timp, Xueqing Zou, Valentin Dimitrov, Klaus Schulten, Andrew P. Feinberg, and Greg Timp. Nanoelectromechanics of methylated DNA in a synthetic nanopore. Biophysical Journal, 96:L32-L34, 2009. (PMC: 2717226)

MIRS2009 Methylation of cytosine is a covalent modification of DNA that can be used to silence genes, orchestrating a myriad of biological processes including cancer. We have discovered that a synthetic nanopore in a membrane comparable in thickness to a protein binding site can be used to detect methylation. We observe a voltage threshold for permeation of methylated DNA through a <2nm diameter pore, which we attribute to the stretching transition, that can differ by >1V/20nm depending on the methylation level, but not the DNA sequence.


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