Single-Molecule Reaction Chemistry in Patterned Nanogaps
D. Bouilly, J. Hon, N. S. Daly, S. Trocchia, S. Vernick, J. Yu, S. Warren, Y. Wu, R. L. Gonzalez, Jr., K. L. Shepard, C. Nuckolls. Single-Molecule Reaction Chemistry in Patterned Nanogaps. Nano Letters 16, 4679-4685, 2016
Abstract
A new approach to synthetic chemistry is performed in ultraminiaturized, nanofabricated reaction chambers. Using lithographically defined nanowells, we achieve single-point covalent chemistry on hundreds of individual carbon nanotube transistors, providing robust statistics and unprecedented spatial resolution in adduct position. Each device acts as a sensor to detect, in real-time and through quantized changes in conductance, single-point functionalization of the nanotube as well as consecutive chemical reactions, molecular interactions, and molecular conformational changes occurring on the resulting single-molecule probe. In particular, we use a set of sequential bioconjugation reactions to tether a single-strand of DNA to the device and record its repeated, reversible folding into a G-quadruplex structure. The stable covalent tether allows us to measure the same molecule in different solutions, revealing the characteristic increased stability of the G-quadruplex structure in the presence of potassium ions (K+) versus sodium ions (Na+). Nanowell-confined reaction chemistry on carbon nanotube devices offers a versatile method to isolate and monitor individual molecules during successive chemical reactions over an extended period of time.
This content has been updated on 11 September 2025 at 18h08.
