北京大學核物理與核技術國家重點實驗室王宇鋼教授領導的離子束物理與應用課題組與中科院化學所分子科學中心合作，近日在製備人工離子通道方面取得重要進展，相關論文以全文形式發表在近日出版的《美國化學會志》上（J. Am. Chem. Soc. ）。該工作一經網上刊出，立即被6月19日出版的英國《自然》雜誌（Nature）列為研究亮點( Research Highlight, Nature, 453, 19, 960, June 2008 )。
該合作研究組的科研人員在經單個高能重離子轟擊的高分子材料的基底上，製備出尖端只有幾納米到幾十納米的圓錐形單納米孔道。然後將具有質子響應性的功能DNA分子馬達接枝在納米孔道內壁上，通過改變環境溶液的pH值，令DNA分子馬達發生構象變化，來完成通道的打開和關閉。該工作的設計靈感來源於生物膜上的離子通道，它的開關機制也是利用分子構象變化完成的，被認為可以用來模擬生物膜離子通道。
該工作是一項核科學、化學及生物學的交叉研究，它不僅為仿生智能分子器件體系的研究與開發做了一個很好的開創性範例，同時也為設計用於生物分子篩選和淡水過濾的選擇性濾膜提供了重要參考依據。
研究工作得到國家自然科學基金及教育部科學研究重大項目的支持。（生物谷bioon.com）
生物谷推薦原始出處：
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.cnAbstract:
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.