Modeling nanopores for sequencing DNA

Electro-osmotic Flow Generation via a Sticky Ion Action

Selective transport of ions through nanometer-sized pores is fundamental to cell biology and central to many technological processes such as water desalination and electrical energy storage. Conventional methods for generating ion selectivity include placement of fixed electrical charges at the inner surface of a nanopore through either point mutations in a protein pore or chemical treatment of a solid-state nanopore surface, with each nanopore type requiring a custom approach. Here, we describe a general method for transforming a nanoscale pore into a highly selective, anion-conducting channel capable of generating a giant electro-osmotic effect. Our molecular dynamics simulations and reverse potential measurements show that exposure of a biological nanopore to high concentrations of guanidinium chloride renders the nanopore surface positively charged due to transient binding of guanidinium cations to the protein surface. A comparison of four biological nanopores reveals the relationship between ion selectivity, nanopore shape, composition of the nanopore surface, and electro-osmotic flow. Guanidinium ions are also found to produce anion selectivity and a giant electro-osmotic flow in solid-state nanopores via the same mechanism. Our sticky-ion approach to generate electro-osmotic flow can have numerous applications in controlling molecular transport at the nanoscale and for detection, identification, and sequencing of individual proteins.

Electro-Osmotic Flow Generation via a Sticky Ion Action

Selective transport of ions through nanometer-sized pores is fundamental to cell biology and central to many technological processes such as water desalination and electrical energy storage. Conventional methods for generating ion selectivity include placement of fixed electrical charges at the inner surface of a nanopore through either point mutations in a protein pore or chemical treatment of a solid-state nanopore surface, with each nanopore type requiring a custom approach. Here, we describe a general method for transforming a nanoscale pore into a highly selective, anion-conducting channel capable of generating a giant electro-osmotic effect. Our molecular dynamics simulations and reverse potential measurements show that exposure of a biological nanopore to high concentrations of guanidinium chloride renders the nanopore surface positively charged due to transient binding of guanidinium cations to the protein surface. A comparison of four biological nanopores reveals the relationship between ion selectivity, nanopore shape, composition of the nanopore surface, and electro-osmotic flow. Remarkably, guanidinium ions are also found to produce anion selectivity and a giant electro-osmotic flow in solid-state nanopores via the same mechanism. Our sticky-ion approach to generate electro-osmotic flow can have numerous applications in controlling molecular transport at the nanoscale and for detection, identification, and sequencing of individual proteins.

Investigation of α-Synuclein and Amyloid-β(42)-E22Δ Oligomers Using SiN Nanopore Functionalized with L-Dopa

Solid-state nanopores are an emerging technology used as a high-throughput, label-free analytical method for the characterization of protein aggregation in an aqueous solution. In this work, we used Levodopamine to coat a silicon nitride nanopore surface that was fabricated through a dielectric breakdown in order to reduce the unspecific adsorption. The coating of inner nanopore wall by investigation of the translocation of heparin. The functionalized nanopore was used to investigate the aggregation of amyloid-β and α-synuclein, two biomarkers of degenerative diseases. In the first application, we demonstrate that the α-synuclein WT is more prone to form dimers than the variant A53T. In the second one, we show for the Aβ(42)-E22Δ (Osaka mutant) that the addition of Aβ(42)-WT monomers increases the polymorphism of oligomers, while the incubation with Aβ(42)-WT fibrils generates larger aggregates.

Distinguishing between Similar Miniproteins with Single-Molecule Nanopore Sensing: A Computational Study

A nanopore is a tool in single-molecule sensing biotechnology that offers label-free identification with high throughput. Nanopores have been successfully applied to sequence DNA and show potential in the study of proteins. Nevertheless, the task remains challenging due to the large variability in size, charges, and folds of proteins. Miniproteins have a small number of residues, limited secondary structure, and stable tertiary structure, which can offer a systematic way to reduce complexity. In this computational work, we theoretically evaluated sensing two miniproteins found in the human body using a silicon nitride nanopore. We employed molecular dynamics methods to compute occupied-pore ionic current magnitudes and electronic structure calculations to obtain interaction strengths between pore wall and miniprotein. From the interaction strength, we derived dwell times using a mix of combinatorics and numerical solutions. This latter approach circumvents typical computational demands needed to simulate translocation events using molecular dynamics. We focused on two miniproteins potentially difficult to distinguish owing to their isotropic geometry, similar number of residues, and overall comparable structure. We found that the occupied-pore current magnitudes not to vary significantly, but their dwell times differ by 1 order of magnitude. Together, these results suggest a successful identification protocol for similar miniproteins.

Inward-facing glycine residues create sharp turns in β-barrel membrane proteins

The transmembrane region of outer-membrane proteins (OMPs) of Gram-negative bacteria are almost exclusively β-barrels composed of between 8 and 26 β-strands. To explore the relationship between β-barrel size and shape, we modeled and simulated engineered variants of the Escherichia coli protein OmpX with 8, 10, 12, 14, and 16 β-strands. We found that while smaller barrels maintained a roughly circular shape, the 16-stranded variant developed a flattened cross section. This flat cross section impeded its ability to conduct ions, in agreement with previous experimental observations. Flattening was determined to arise from the presence of inward-facing glycines at sharp turns in the β-barrel. An analysis of all simulations revealed that glycines, on average, make significantly smaller angles with residues on neighboring strands than all other amino acids, including alanine, and create sharp turns in β-barrel cross sections. This observation was generalized to 119 unique structurally resolved OMPs. We also found that the fraction of glycines in β-barrels decreases as the strand number increases, suggesting an evolutionary role for the addition or removal of glycine in OMP sequences.

Scalable molecular dynamics on CPU and GPU architectures with NAMD

NAMDis a molecular dynamics program designed for high-performance simulations of very large biological objects on CPU- and GPU-based architectures. NAMD offers scalable performance on petascale parallel supercomputers consisting of hundreds of thousands of cores, as well as on inexpensive commodity clusters commonly found in academic environments. It is written in C++ and leans on Charm++ parallel objects for optimal performance on low-latency architectures. NAMD is a versatile, multipurpose code that gathers state-of-the-art algorithms to carry out simulations in apt thermodynamic ensembles, using the widely popular CHARMM, AMBER, OPLS, and GROMOS biomolecular force fields. Here, we review the main features of NAMD that allow both equilibrium and enhanced-sampling molecular dynamics simulations with numerical efficiency. We describe the underlying concepts utilized by NAMD and their implementation, most notably for handling long-range electrostatics; controlling the temperature, pressure, and pH; applying external potentials on tailored grids; leveraging massively parallel resources in multiple-copy simulations; and hybrid quantum-mechanical/molecular-mechanical descriptions. We detail the variety of options offered by NAMD for enhanced-sampling simulations aimed at determining free-energy differences of either alchemical or geometrical transformations and outline their applicability to specific problems. Last, we discuss the roadmap for the development of NAMD and our current efforts toward achieving optimal performance on GPU-based architectures, for pushing back the limitations that have prevented biologically realistic billion-atom objects to be fruitfully simulated, and for making large-scale simulations less expensive and easier to set up, run, and analyze. NAMD is distributed free of charge with its source code at www.ks.uiuc.edu.

Revealing the mechanism of DNA passing through graphene and boron nitride nanopores

Nanopores on 2D materials have great potential for DNA sequencing, which is attributed to their high sequencing speed and reduced cost. However, identifying DNA bases at such a high speed with nanometer precision has remained a big challenge. Here, we implemented theoretical calculations to show the translocation of single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) through solid-state nanopores on a 2D hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) and graphene sheet. A base-specific ssDNA sequencing technique was devised, based on the individual differences in the ion current responses for the (polyA)₁₆, (polyG)₁₆, (polyC)₁₆, and (polyT)₁₆ bases of ssDNA. Our sequential procedure for sequencing is built on a comparative approach between the current signals obtained from the nanopores to achieve base-specific detection. Our results indicate that at higher voltages (1.0, 1.2, 1.4, 1.6, 1.8 and 2.0 V nm^-1), DNA translocation is tracked though the 1.5 and 2.0 nm nanopores, and at the 1.5 nm pore size, folded ssDNA close to the nanopore accounts for 93% and 81% of events for graphene and h-BN. Our calculations indicate charge transfer from the graphene to ssDNA, while the reverse happens in the case of the h-BN membrane. These results provide critical insights into our understanding of single molecule sequencing through solid-state nanopore research.

Insights into protein sequencing with an α-Hemolysin nanopore by atomistic simulations

Single molecule protein sequencing would represent a disruptive burst in proteomic research with important biomedical impacts. Due to their success in DNA sequencing, nanopore based devices have been recently proposed as possible tools for the sequencing of peptide chains. One of the open questions in nanopore protein sequencing concerns the ability of such devices to provide different signals for all the 20 standard amino acids. Here, using equilibrium all-atom molecular dynamics simulations, we estimated the pore clogging in α-Hemolysin nanopore associated to 20 different homopeptides, one for each standard amino acid. Our results show that pore clogging is affected by amino acid volume, hydrophobicity and net charge. The equilibrium estimations are also supported by non-equilibrium runs for calculating the current blockades for selected homopeptides. Finally, we discuss the possibility to modify the α-Hemolysin nanopore, cutting a portion of the barrel region close to the trans side, to reduce spurious signals and, hence, to enhance the sensitivity of the nanopore.

Sequence-Dependent Unzipping Dynamics of DNA Hairpins in a Nanopore

By applying an electric field to an insulating membrane, movement of charged particles through a nanopore can be induced. The measured ionic current reports on biomolecules passing through the nanopore. In this paper, we explore the sequence-dependent dynamics of DNA unzipping using our recently developed coarse-grained model. We estimated three molecular profiles (the potential of mean force, position-dependent diffusion coefficient, and position-dependent effective charge) for the DNA unzipping of four hairpins with different sequences. We found that the molecular profiles are correlated with the ionic current and molecular events. We also explored the unzipping kinetics using Brownian dynamics. We found that the effect of hairpin structure on the unzipping/translocation times is not only energetic (weaker hairpins unzip more quickly) but also kinetic (different unzipping and translocation pathways play an important role).

Orientation effects on the nanoscale adsorption behavior of bone morphogenetic protein-2 on hydrophilic silicon dioxide

Bone Morphogenetic Protein-2 (BMP-2) is a growth factor associated with different developmental functions in regenerative medicine and tissue engineering. Because of its favorable properties for the development of bone and cartilage tissue, BMP-2 promotes the biocompatibility of medical implants. In this research, molecular dynamics simulations were implemented to simulate the interaction of BMP-2 with a flat hydrophilic silicon dioxide substrate, an important biomaterial for medical applications. We considered the influence of four orthogonal protein orientations on the adsorption behavior. Results showed that arginine and lysine were the main residues to interact with the silicon dioxide substrate, directly adsorbing onto the surface and overcoming water layers. However, between these charged residues, we observed a preference for arginine to adsorb. Orientations with the α-helix loop closer to the surface at the beginning of the simulations had greater loss of secondary structure as compared to the other configurations. Among all the orientations, the end-on B configuration had favorable adsorption characteristics with a binding energy of 14 000 kJ mol-1 and retention of 21.7% β-sheets as confirmed by the Ramachandran plots. This research provides new insights into the nanoscale interaction of BMP-2 and silicon dioxide substrate with applications in orthopedic implants and regenerative medicine.

Protein Nanopore-Based Discrimination between Selected Neutral Amino Acids from Polypeptides

Nanopore probing of biological polymers has the potential to achieve single-molecule sequencing at low cost, high throughput, portability, and minimal sample preparation and apparatus. In this article, we explore the possibility of discrimination between neutral amino acid residues from the primary structure of 30 amino acids long, engineered peptides, through the analysis of single-molecule ionic current fluctuations accompanying their slowed-down translocation across the wild type α-hemolysin (α-HL) nanopore, and molecular dynamics simulations. We found that the transient presence inside the α-HL of alanine or tryptophan residues from the primary sequence of engineered peptides results in distinct features of the ionic current fluctuation pattern associated with the peptide reversibly blocking the nanopore. We propose that α-HL sensitivity to the molecular exclusion at the most constricted region mediates ionic current blockade events correlated with the volumes that are occluded by at least three alanine or tryptophan residues, and provides the specificity needed to discriminate between groups of neutral amino acids. Further, we find that the pattern of current fluctuations depends on the orientation of the threaded amino acid residues, suggestive of a conformational anisotropy of the ensemble of conformations of the peptide on the restricted nanopore region, related to its relative axial orientation inside the nanopore.

Numerical investigation of molecular nano-array in potential-energy profile for a single dsDNA

A Rigorous numerical investigation on dsDNA translocation in quasi-2-dimensional nano-array filter is performed using Molecular Dynamics (MD) method. Various dsDNA molecules with different sizes are chosen in order to model Ogston sieving in a nano-array filter. The radius of gyration of dsDNA molecule is less than the characteristic length of the shallow region in nano-array. The dsDNA molecule is assumed to be in the 0.05M NaCl electrolyte. MD shows acceptable results for potential-energy profile for nano-array filter. According to the MD outcomes, the dsDNA electrophoretic mobility decreases almost linearly with dsDNA size and show the same trend as Ogston sieving for gel electrophoresis. In addition, different shapes for nano-array filter are studied for a unique dsDNA molecule. It is concluded that steeping the nano-array wall can cause the retardation of dsDNA translocation and decreases dsDNA electrophoretic mobility.

Diffusive dynamics of DNA unzipping in a nanopore

When an electric field is applied to an insulating membrane, movement of charged particles through a nanopore is induced. The measured ionic current reports on biomolecules passing through the nanopore. In this work, we explored the kinetics of DNA unzipping in a nanopore using our coarse-grained model (Stachiewicz and Molski, J. Comput. Chem. 2015, 36, 947). Coarse graining allowed a more detailed analysis for a wider range of parameters than all-atom simulations. Dependence of the translocation mode (unzipping or distortion) on the pore diameter was examined, and the threshold voltages were estimated. We determined the potential of mean force, position-dependent diffusion coefficient, and position-dependent effective charge for the DNA unzipping. The three molecular profiles were correlated with the ionic current and molecular events. On the unzipping/translocation force profile, two energy maxima were found, one of them corresponding to the unzipping, and the other to the translocation barriers. The unzipping kinetics were further explored using Brownian dynamics.

Predicting Adsorption Affinities of Small Molecules on Carbon Nanotubes Using Molecular Dynamics Simulation

Computational techniques have the potential to accelerate the design and optimization of nanomaterials for applications such as drug delivery and contaminant removal; however, the success of such techniques requires reliable models of nanomaterial surfaces as well as accurate descriptions of their interactions with relevant solutes. In the present work, we evaluate the ability of selected models of naked and hydroxylated carbon nanotubes to predict adsorption equilibrium constants for about 30 small aromatic compounds with a variety of functional groups. The equilibrium constants determined using molecular dynamics coupled with free-energy calculation techniques are directly compared to those derived from experimental measurements. The calculations are highly predictive of the relative adsorption affinities of the compounds, with excellent correlation (r ≥ 0.9) between calculated and measured values of the logarithm of the adsorption equilibrium constant. Moreover, the agreement in absolute terms is also reasonable, with average errors of less than one decade. We also explore possible effects of surface loading, although we demonstrate that they are negligible for the experimental conditions considered. Given the degree of reliability demonstrated, we move on to employing the in silico techniques in the design of nanomaterials, using the optimization of adsorption affinity for the herbacide atrazine as an example. Our simulations suggest that, compared to other modifications of graphenic carbon, polyvinylpyrrolidone conjugation gives the highest affinity for atrazine-substantially greater than that of graphenic carbon alone-and may be useful as a nanomaterial for delivery or sequestration of atrazine.

Rigorous study of molecular dynamics of a single dsDNA confined in a nanochannel: Introduction of a critical mobility behaviour

The essential and effective characteristics of a double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) confined in a nanochannel is revisited by employing the rigorous full numerical approach of Molecular Dynamics (MD). The deformation of dsDNA and wall-biomolecule interaction which is critical in highly confined regime has been precisely imposed in numerical simulations. The numerical approach has been justified against available theoretical outcomes. A new and general expression for DNA electrophoretic mobility versus DNA length is extracted from numerical simulation which is out of reach of experimental methods due to practical shortcomings. The newly derived expression suggests an essential correction in the previously proposed expression for the critical case of small DNA molecules and reveals an astonishingly unbeknown trend of small DNA's mobility. Sub-molecular phenomenon of dsDNA melting under the condition of large external force is also studied. Assuming strong electric field exertion, the MD approach aptly demonstrates the elaborate melting phenomenon for dsDNA in sub-molecular scale.

Adsorption of soft and hard proteins onto OTCEs under the influence of an external electric field

The adsorption behavior of hard and soft proteins under the effect of an external electric field was investigated by a combination of spectroscopic ellipsometry and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. Optically transparent carbon electrodes (OTCE) were used as conductive, sorbent substrates. Lysozyme (LSZ) and ribonuclease A (RNase A) were selected as representative hard proteins, whereas myoglobin (Mb), α-lactalbumin (α-LAC), bovine serum albumin (BSA), glucose oxidase (GOx), and immunoglobulin G (IgG) were selected to represent soft proteins. In line with recent publications from our group, the experimental results revealed that while the adsorption of all investigated proteins can be enhanced by the potential applied to the electrode, the effect is more pronounced for hard proteins. In contrast with the incomplete monolayers formed at open-circuit potential, the application of +800 mV to the sorbent surface induced the formation of multiple layers of protein. These results suggest that this effect can be related to the intrinsic polarizability of the protein (induction of dipoles), the resulting surface accessible solvent area (SASA), and structural rearrangements induced upon the incorporation on the protein layer. The described experiments are critical to understand the relationship between the structure of proteins and their tendency to form (under electric stimulation) layers with thicknesses that greatly surpass those obtained at open-circuit conditions.

Toward detection of DNA-bound proteins using solid-state nanopores: insights from computer simulations

Through all-atom molecular dynamics simulations, we explore the use of nanopores in thin synthetic membranes for detection and identification of DNA binding proteins. Reproducing the setup of a typical experiment, we simulate electric field driven transport of DNA-bound proteins through nanopores smaller in diameter than the proteins. As model systems, we use restriction enzymes EcoRI and BamHI specifically and nonspecifically bound to a fragment of dsDNA, and streptavidin and NeutrAvidin proteins bound to dsDNA and ssDNA via a biotin linker. Our simulations elucidate the molecular mechanics of nanopore-induced rupture of a protein-DNA complex, the effective force applied to the DNA-protein bond by the electrophoretic force in a nanopore, and the role of DNA-surface interactions in the rupture process. We evaluate the ability of the nanopore ionic current and the local electrostatic potential measured by an embedded electrode to report capture of DNA, capture of a DNA-bound protein, and rupture of the DNA-protein bond. We find that changes in the strain on dsDNA can reveal the rupture of a protein-DNA complex by altering both the nanopore ionic current and the potential of the embedded electrode. Based on the results of our simulations, we suggest a new method for detection of DNA binding proteins that utilizes peeling of a nicked double strand under the electrophoretic force in a nanopore.

BROMOC-D: Brownian Dynamics/Monte-Carlo Program Suite to Study Ion and DNA Permeation in Nanopores

A theoretical framework is presented to model ion and DNA translocation across a nanopore confinement under an applied electric field. A combined Grand Canonical Monte Carlo Brownian Dynamics (GCMC/BD) algorithm offers a general approach to study ion permeation through wide molecular pores with a direct account of ion-ion and ion-DNA correlations. This work extends previously developed theory by incorporating the recently developed coarse-grain polymer model of DNA by de Pablo and colleagues [Knotts, T. A.; Rathore, N.; Schwartz, D. C.; de Pablo, J. J. J. Chem. Phys. 2007, 126] with explicit ions for simulations of polymer dynamics. Atomistic MD simulations were used to guide model developments. The power of the developed scheme is illustrated with studies of single-stranded DNA (ss-DNA) oligomer translocation in two model cases: a cylindrical pore with a varying radius and a well-studied experimental system, the staphylococcal α-hemolysin channel. The developed model shows good agreement with experimental data for model studies of two homopolymers: ss-poly(dA)(n) and ss-poly(dC)(n). The developed protocol allows for direct evaluation of different factors (charge distribution and pore shape and size) controlling DNA translocation in a variety of nanopores.

Predicting the DNA sequence dependence of nanopore ion current using atomic-resolution Brownian dynamics

It has become possible to distinguish DNA molecules of different nucleotide sequences by measuring ion current passing through a narrow pore containing DNA. To assist experimentalists in interpreting the results of such measurements and to improve the DNA sequence detection method, we have developed a computational approach that has both the atomic-scale accuracy and the computational efficiency required to predict DNA sequence-specific differences in the nanopore ion current. In our Brownian dynamics method, the interaction between the ions and DNA is described by three-dimensional potential of mean force maps determined to a 0.03 nm resolution from all-atom molecular dynamics simulations. While this atomic-resolution Brownian dynamics method produces results with orders of magnitude less computational effort than all-atom molecular dynamics requires, we show here that the ion distributions and ion currents predicted by the two methods agree. Finally, using our Brownian dynamics method, we find that a small change in the sequence of DNA within a pore can cause a large change in the ion current, and validate this result with all-atom molecular dynamics.