Conformational Manipulation of DNA in Nanochannels Using Hydrodynamics

Qihao He (1) , Hubert Ranchon (1) , Pascal Carrivain (2) , Yannick Viero (1) , Joris Lacroix (1) , Marie-Charline Blatché (3) , Emmanuelle Daran (4) , Jean-Marc Victor (2) , Aurélien Bancaud (5)

1 LAAS - Laboratoire d'analyse et d'architecture des systèmes
2 LPTMC - Laboratoire de Physique Théorique de la Matière Condensée
3 LAAS-I2C - Service Instrumentation Conception Caractérisation
4 LAAS-TEAM - Service Techniques et Équipements Appliqués à la Microélectronique
5 LAAS-N2IS - Équipe Nano Ingénierie et Intégration des Systèmes

The control over DNA elongation in nanofluidic devices holds great potential for large-scale genomic analysis. So far, the manipulation of DNA in nanochannels has been mostly carried out with electrophoresis and seldom with hydrodynamics, although the physics of soft matter in nanoscale flows has raised considerable interest over the past decade. In this report the migration of DNA is studied in nanochannels of lateral dimension spanning 100 to 500 nm using both actuation principles. We show that the relaxation kinetics are 3-fold slowed down and the extension increases up to 3-fold using hydrodynamics. We propose a model to account for the onset in elongation with the flow, which assumes that DNA response is determined by the shear-driven lift forces mediated by the proximity of the channels' walls. Overall, we suggest that hydrodynamic actuation allows for an improved manipulation of DNA in nanochannels.

Mots clés: NANOFLUIDIC CHANNELS; POLYMER-CHAINS; STRETCHED DNA; HUMAN GENOME; SHEAR-FLOW; DYNAMICS; MOLECULES; LENGTH

Domaines: Biophysique [physics.bio-ph]

Qihao He, Hubert Ranchon, Pascal Carrivain, Yannick Viero, Joris Lacroix, et al.. Conformational Manipulation of DNA in Nanochannels Using Hydrodynamics. Macromolecules, 2013, 46 (15), pp.6195-6202. ⟨10.1021/ma400575h⟩. ⟨hal-01053101⟩