Journal ArticleDOI
Stochastic transport through carbon nanotubes in lipid bilayers and live cell membranes
Jia Geng,Kyunghoon Kim,Jianfei Zhang,Artur Escalada,Ramya H. Tunuguntla,Luis R. Comolli,Frances I. Allen,Anna V. Shnyrova,Kang Rae Cho,Dayannara Munoz,Y. Morris Wang,Costas P. Grigoropoulos,Caroline M. Ajo-Franklin,Vadim A. Frolov,Aleksandr Noy +14 more
TLDR
It is shown that short CNTs spontaneously insert into lipid bilayers and live cell membranes to form channels that exhibit a unitary conductance of 70–100 picosiemens under physiological conditions, thereby establishing these nanopores as a promising biomimetic platform for developing cell interfaces, studying transport in biological channels, and creating stochastic sensors.Abstract:
Short carbon nanotubes spontaneously insert into lipid bilayers and live cell membranes to form channels with useful and tunable transport properties that make them a promising biomimetic nanopore platform for developing cell interfaces, studying nanofluidic transport in biological channels, and creating stochastic sensors. Synthetic analogues of biological membrane channels that match the latter's high efficiency and exquisite selectivity for transporting ions and molecules could find many applications. Although it is possible to produce nanopores of a size comparable to that of protein channels, replicating their affinity and transport properties remains challenging. Jia Geng et al. now show that short (10-nm-long) single-wall carbon nanotubes spontaneously insert into lipid bilayers and live cell membranes to form channels with useful and tuneable transport properties. These carbon-nanotube channel-forming molecules or porins offer a promising biomimetic nanopore platform for developing cell interfaces, studying transport in biological channels, and creating stochastic sensors. There is much interest in developing synthetic analogues of biological membrane channels1 with high efficiency and exquisite selectivity for transporting ions and molecules. Bottom-up2 and top-down3 methods can produce nanopores of a size comparable to that of endogenous protein channels, but replicating their affinity and transport properties remains challenging. In principle, carbon nanotubes (CNTs) should be an ideal membrane channel platform: they exhibit excellent transport properties4,5,6,7,8 and their narrow hydrophobic inner pores mimic structural motifs typical of biological channels1. Moreover, simulations predict that CNTs with a length comparable to the thickness of a lipid bilayer membrane can self-insert into the membrane9,10. Functionalized CNTs have indeed been found to penetrate lipid membranes and cell walls11,12, and short tubes have been forced into membranes to create sensors13, yet membrane transport applications of short CNTs remain underexplored. Here we show that short CNTs spontaneously insert into lipid bilayers and live cell membranes to form channels that exhibit a unitary conductance of 70–100 picosiemens under physiological conditions. Despite their structural simplicity, these ‘CNT porins’ transport water, protons, small ions and DNA, stochastically switch between metastable conductance substates, and display characteristic macromolecule-induced ionic current blockades. We also show that local channel and membrane charges can control the conductance and ion selectivity of the CNT porins, thereby establishing these nanopores as a promising biomimetic platform for developing cell interfaces, studying transport in biological channels, and creating stochastic sensors.read more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
Carbon Nanomaterials for Biological Imaging and Nanomedicinal Therapy
Journal ArticleDOI
Enhanced water permeability and tunable ion selectivity in subnanometer carbon nanotube porins.
Ramya H. Tunuguntla,Robert Y. Henley,Robert Y. Henley,Yun Chiao Yao,Yun Chiao Yao,Tuan Anh Pham,Meni Wanunu,Aleksandr Noy,Aleksandr Noy +8 more
TL;DR: Water permeability in 0.8-nanometer-diameter carbon nanotube porins (CNTPs), which confine water down to a single-file chain, exceeds that of biological water transporters and of wider CNT pores by an order of magnitude.
Journal ArticleDOI
Massive radius-dependent flow slippage in carbon nanotubes
Eleonora Secchi,Sophie Marbach,Antoine Niguès,Derek Stein,Derek Stein,Alessandro Siria,Lydéric Bocquet +6 more
TL;DR: It is shown that the pressure-driven flow rate through individual nanotubes can be determined with unprecedented sensitivity and without dyes from the hydrodynamics of water jets as they emerge from single nanotube into a surrounding fluid.
Journal ArticleDOI
Intracellular Delivery by Membrane Disruption: Mechanisms, Strategies, and Concepts.
TL;DR: Techniques for membrane disruption-based intracellular delivery from 1911 until the present achieve rapid, direct, and universal delivery of almost any cargo molecule or material that can be dispersed in solution.
Journal ArticleDOI
Cryoprotectant Toxicity: Facts, Issues, and Questions
TL;DR: This review attempts to describe what is known about CPA toxicity, theories of CPA Toxicology, and strategies to reduce CPAoxicity.
References
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Characterization of individual polynucleotide molecules using a membrane channel
TL;DR: It is shown that an electric field can drive single-stranded RNA and DNA molecules through a 2.6-nm diameter ion channel in a lipid bilayer membrane, which could in principle provide direct, high-speed detection of the sequence of bases in single molecules of DNA or RNA.
Journal ArticleDOI
Water conduction through the hydrophobic channel of a carbon nanotube
TL;DR: Observations suggest that carbon nanotubes, with their rigid nonpolar structures, might be exploited as unique molecular channels for water and protons, with the channel occupancy and conductivity tunable by changes in the local channel polarity and solvent conditions.
Journal ArticleDOI
Carbon nanotubes as multifunctional biological transporters and near-infrared agents for selective cancer cell destruction.
TL;DR: It is shown here that the strong optical absorbance of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) in this special spectral window, an intrinsic property of SWNTs, can be used for optical stimulation of nanot tubes inside living cells to afford multifunctional nanotube biological transporters.
Journal ArticleDOI
Computer control of microscopes using µManager.
Arthur D. Edelstein,Nenad Amodaj,Karl Hoover,Ronald D. Vale,Ronald D. Vale,Nico Stuurman,Nico Stuurman +6 more
TL;DR: This unit provides step‐by‐step protocols describing how to get started working with µManager, as well as some starting points for advanced use of the software.
Journal ArticleDOI
Ion-beam sculpting at nanometre length scales
Jiali Li,Derek Stein,Ciaran J. McMullan,Daniel Branton,Michael J. Aziz,Jene Andrew Golovchenko +5 more
TL;DR: It is shown that ion-beam sculpting can be used to fashion an analogous solid-state device: a robust electronic detector consisting of a single nanopore in a Si3N4 membrane, capable of registering single DNA molecules in aqueous solution.