Effect of Nanopore Length on the Translocation Process of a Biopolymer: Numerical Study

Materials

Suresh Alapati¹  Woo Seong Che¹ 

[1] Department of Mechatronics Engineering, Kyungsung University, 309 Suyeong-ro, Nam-gu, Busan 608-736, Korea; E-Mails:

关键词: translocation motion;    bio-polymer;    nanopore length;    lattice Boltzmann method;   

DOI  :  10.3390/ma6093989

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

In this study, we simulate the electrophoretic motion of a bio-polymer through a synthetic nanopore in the presence of an external bias voltage by considering the hydrodynamic interactions between the polymer and the fluid explicitly. The motion of the polymer is simulated by 3D Langevin dynamics technique by modeling the polymer as a worm-like-chain, while the hydrodynamic interactions are incorporated by the lattice Boltzmann equation. We report the simulation results for three different lengths of the nanopore. The translocation time increases with the pore length even though the electrophoretic force on the polymer is the same irrespective of the pore length. This is attributed to the fact that the translocation velocity of each bead inside the nanopore decreases with the pore length due to the increased fluid resistance force caused by the increase in the straightened portion of the polymer. We confirmed this using a theoretical formula.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2013 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.