Abstract
Channels formed by membrane proteins regulate the transport of water, ions or nutrients that are essential to cells' metabolism. Recent advances in nanotechnology allow us to fabricate solid-state nanopores for transporting and analyzing biomolecules. However, uncontrollable surface properties of a fabricated nanopore cause irregular transport of biomolecules, limiting potential biomimetic applications. Here we show that a nanopore functionalized with a self-assembled monolayer (SAM) can potentially regulate the transport of a DNA molecule by changing functional groups of the SAM. We found that an enhanced interaction between DNA and a SAM-coated nanopore can slow down the translocation speed of DNA molecules and increase the DNA capture-rate. Our results demonstrate that the transport of DNA molecules inside nanopores could be modulated by coating a SAM on the pore surface. Our method to control the DNA motion inside a nanopore may find its applications in nanopore-based DNA sequencing devices.