Single-Molecule Sizing through Nanocavity Confinement.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 36826991.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1021/acs.nanolett.1c04830 and PMC identifier 9999452.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
An approach relying on nanocavity confinement is developed in this paper for the sizing of nanoscale particles and single biomolecules in solution. The approach, termed nanocavity diffusional sizing (NDS), measures particle residence times within nanofluidic cavities to determine their hydrodynamic radii. Using theoretical modeling and simulations, we show that the residence time of particles within nanocavities above a critical time scale depends on the diffusion coefficient of the particle, which allows the estimation of the particle's size. We demonstrate this approach experimentally through the measurement of particle residence times within nanofluidic cavities using single-molecule confocal microscopy. Our data show that the residence times scale linearly with the sizes of nanoscale colloids, protein aggregates, and single DNA oligonucleotides. NDS thus constitutes a new single molecule optofluidic approach that allows rapid and quantitative sizing of nanoscale particles for potential applications in nanobiotechnology, biophysics, and clinical diagnostics.