Analytical Sciences

Self-assembled Nanowire Arrays as Three-dimensional Nanopores for Filtration of DNA Molecules

Sakon RAHONG,*1,*2 Takao YASUI,*2,*3 Takeshi YANAGIDA,*4 Kazuki NAGASHIMA,*4 Masaki KANAI,*4 Gang MENG,*4 Yong HE,*4 Fuwei ZHUGE,*4 Noritada KAJI,*2,*3 Tomoji KAWAI,*4 and Yoshinobu BABA*2,*3,*5

*1 Institute of Innovation for Future Society, Nagoya University, Furo-cho, Chikusa, Nagoya, Aichi 464-8603, Japan
*2 FIRST Research Center for Innovative Nanobiodevices, Nagoya University, Furo-cho, Chikusa, Nagoya, Aichi 464-8603, Japan
*3 Department of Applied Chemistry, Graduate School of Engineering, Nagoya University, Furo-cho, Chikusa, Nagoya, Aichi 464-8603, Japan
*4 The Institute of Scientific and Industrial Research, Osaka University, 8-1 Mihogaoka, Ibaraki, Osaka 567-0047, Japan
*5 Health Research Institute, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), 2217-14 Hayashi-cho, Takamatsu 761-0395, Japan

Molecular filtration and purification play important roles for biomolecule analysis. However, it is still necessary to improve efficiency and reduce the filtration time. Here, we show self-assembled nanowire arrays as three-dimensional (3D) nanopores embedded in a microfluidic channel for ultrafast DNA filtration. The 3D nanopore structure was formed by a vapor-liquid-solid (VLS) nanowire growth technique, which allowed us to control pore size of the filtration material by varying the number of growth cycles. λ DNA molecules (48.5 kbp) were filtrated from a mixture of T4 DNA (166 kbp) at the entrance of the 3D nanopore structure within 1 s under an applied electric field. Moreover, we observed single DNA molecule migration of T4 and λ DNA molecules to clarify the filtration mechanism. The 3D nanopore structure has simplicity of fabrication, flexibility of pore size control and reusability for biomolecule filtration. Consequently it is an excellent material for biomolecular filtration.

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