An entropic force microscope enables nano-scale conformational probing of biomolecules

Measuring the wall depletion length of nanoconfined DNA

Efforts to study the polymer physics of DNA confined in nanochannels have been stymied by a lack of consensus regarding its wall depletion length. We have measured this quantity in 38 nm wide, square silicon dioxide nanochannels for five different ionic strengths between 15 mM and 75 mM. Experiments used the Bionano Genomics Irys platform for massively parallel data acquisition, attenuating the effect of the sequence-dependent persistence length and finite-length effects by using nick-labeled E. coli genomic DNA with contour length separations of at least 30 µm (88 325 base pairs) between nick pairs. Over 5 × 106 measurements of the fractional extension were obtained from 39 291 labeled DNA molecules. Analyzing the stretching via Odijk's theory for a strongly confined wormlike chain yielded a linear relationship between the depletion length and the Debye length. This simple linear fit to the experimental data exhibits the same qualitative trend as previously defined analytical models for the depletion length but now quantitatively captures the experimental data.

Nanomechanics of Fluorescent DNA Dyes on DNA Investigated by Magnetic Tweezers

Fluorescent DNA dyes are broadly used in many biotechnological applications for detecting and imaging DNA in cells and gels. Their binding alters the structural and nanomechanical properties of DNA and affects the biological processes that are associated with it. Although interaction modes like intercalation and minor groove binding already have been identified, associated mechanic effects like local elongation, unwinding, and softening of the DNA often remain in question. We used magnetic tweezers to quantitatively investigate the impact of three DNA-binding dyes (YOYO-1, DAPI, and DRAQ5) in a concentration-dependent manner. By extending and overwinding individual, torsionally constrained, nick-free dsDNA molecules, we measured the contour lengths and molecular forces that allow estimation of thermodynamic and nanomechanical binding parameters. Whereas for YOYO-1 and DAPI the binding mechanisms could be assigned to bis-intercalation and minor groove binding, respectively, DRAQ5 exhibited both binding modes in a concentration-dependent manner.

Wall depletion length of a channel-confined polymer

Numerous experiments have taken advantage of DNA as a model system to test theories for a channel-confined polymer. A tacit assumption in analyzing these data is the existence of a well-defined depletion length characterizing DNA-wall interactions such that the experimental system (a polyelectrolyte in a channel with charged walls) can be mapped to the theoretical model (a neutral polymer with hard walls). We test this assumption using pruned-enriched Rosenbluth method (PERM) simulations of a DNA-like semiflexible polymer confined in a tube. The polymer-wall interactions are modeled by augmenting a hard wall interaction with an exponentially decaying, repulsive soft potential. The free energy, mean span, and variance in the mean span obtained in the presence of a soft wall potential are compared to equivalent simulations in the absence of the soft wall potential to determine the depletion length. We find that the mean span and variance about the mean span have the same depletion length for all soft potentials we tested. In contrast, the depletion length for the confinement free energy approaches that for the mean span only when depletion length no longer depends on channel size. The results have implications for the interpretation of DNA confinement experiments under low ionic strengths.

Effect of YOYO-1 on the mechanical properties of DNA

YOYO-1 is a green fluorescent dye which is widely used to image single DNA molecules in solution for biophysical studies. However, the question of whether the intercalation of YOYO-1 affects the mechanical properties of DNA is still not clearly answered. Investigators have put forth contradicting data on the changes in persistence length of DNA. Here, we use atomic force microscopy to systematically study the changes in the mechanical properties of DNA due to the intercalation of YOYO-1. We first measured the persistence length, contour length and the bending angle distribution of the DNA-YOYO-1 complex. We find that the persistence length of DNA remains unaffected with the intercalation of YOYO-1. However the contour length increases linearly with about 38% increase at full saturation of 1 YOYO-1 per 4 base pairs of DNA. Next we measured the change in topology of relaxed closed circular DNA after the intercalation of YOYO-1. We find that YOYO-1 introduces supercoiling in closed circular DNA. Our observations indicate that the intercalation of YOYO-1 results in the underwinding of DNA duplex, but does not significantly change the persistence length.