Temperature-dependent tendency of target DNA translocation through a nanocapillary functionalized with probe DNA

We have measured DNA translocation through a nanocapillary functionalized with probe DNA. These DNA-functionalized nanocapillaries selectively facilitate the translocation of target ssDNAs that are complementary to the probe ssDNAs. In addition, translocation of the complementary target ssDNA exhibits two tendencies to translocation speed, such as fast and slow translocation, whereas that of non-complementary target ssDNA yields only one tendency, fast translocation. These observations suggest that the complementary and non-complementary target ssDNAs may be discriminated due to different interaction strengths between target and probe ssDNAs. The temperature dependence measurements of DNA translocation show that slow translocation events are ascribed to the complementary interaction between probe and target ssDNA. This confirms that their dwell time is dependent on the base-pair binding strength. These results demonstrate that mere single-base different target DNA can be selectively detectable by using the probe DNA-functionalized nanocapillaries.