By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Life Science Weekly -- Researchers detail new data in DNA Research. According to news reporting originating in Beijing, People's Republic of China, by NewsRx journalists, research stated, "Experiments using nanopores demonstrated that a salt gradient enhances the capture rate of DNA and reduces its transfocation speed. These two effects can help to enable electrical DNA sequencing with nanopores."

The news reporters obtained a quote from the research from Peking University, "Here, we provide a quantitative theoretical evaluation that shows the positive net charges, which accumulate around the pore entrance due to the salt gradient, are responsible for the two observed effects: they reinforce the electric capture field, resulting in promoted molecule capture rate; and they induce cationic electroosmotic flow through the nanopore, thus significantly retarding the motion of the anionic DNA through the nanopore. Our multiphysical simulation results show that, during the polymer trapping stage, the former effect plays the major role, thus resulting in promoted DNA capture rate, while during the nanopore-penetrating stage the latter effect dominates and consequently reduces the DNA translocation speed significantly."

According to the news reporters, the research concluded: "Quantitative agreement with experimental results has been reached by further taking nanopore wall surface charges into account."

For more information on this research see: Mechanism of How Salt-Gradient-Induced Charges Affect the Translocation of DNA Molecules through a Nanopore. Biophysical Journal , 2013;105(3):776-782. Biophysical Journal  can be contacted at: Cell Press, 600 Technology Square, 5TH Floor, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. (Elsevier - www.elsevier.com; Biophysical Journal - www.elsevier.com/wps/product/cws_home/716950)

Source: HispanicBusiness

Edited by: Arthars