Observing Confined Local Oxygen-induced Reversible Thiol/Disulfide Cycle with a Protein Nanopore

Disulfide bonds play an important role in thiol-based redox regulation. However, owing to the lack of analytical tools, little is known about how local O₂ mediates the reversible thiol/disulfide cycle under protein confinement. In this study, a protein-nanopore inside a glove box is used to control local O₂ for single-molecule reaction, as well as a single-molecule sensor for real-time monitoring of the reversible thiol/disulfide cycle. The results demonstrate that the local O₂ molecules in protein nanopores could facilitate the redox cycle of disulfide formation and cleavage by promoting a higher fraction of effective reactant collisions owing to nanoconfinement. Further kinetic calculations indicate that the negatively charged residues near reactive sites facilitate proton-involved oxygen-induced disulfide cleavage under protein confinement. The unexpectedly strong oxidation ability of confined local O₂ may play an essential role in cellular redox signaling and enzyme reactions.     

Controlled Genetic Encoding of Unnatural Amino Acids in a Protein Nanopore

Conventional protein engineering methods for modifying protein nanopores are typically limited to 20 natural amino acids, which restrict the diversity of the nanopores in structure and function. To enrich the chemical environment inside the nanopore, we employed the genetic code expansion (GCE) technique to site-specifically incorporate the unnatural amino acid (UAA) into the sensing region of aerolysin nanopores. This approach leveraged the efficient pyrrolysine-based aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase-tRNA pair for a high yield of pore-forming protein. Both molecular dynamics (MD) simulations and single-molecule sensing experiments demonstrated that the conformation of UAA residues provided a favorable geometric orientation for the interactions of target molecules and the pore. This rationally designed chemical environment enabled the direct discrimination of multiple peptides containing hydrophobic amino acids. Our work provides a new framework for endowing nanopores with unique sensing properties that are difficult to achieve using classical protein engineering approaches.     

Aerolysin纳米孔道对寡聚核苷酸的高灵敏单分子检测

自纳米孔道单分子电化学技术提出以来,为了构建性能良好的纳米孔道,研究人员一直在寻找不同的孔道材料. 本研究探索了Aerolysin生物纳米孔道在寡聚核苷酸检测方面的可能性. 实验结果表明,与常用的α-溶血素纳米孔道相比,Aerolysin纳米孔道在寡聚核苷酸检测方面表现出更强的空间和时间分辨能力. 三个碱基长度的寡聚核苷酸可对Aerolysin纳米孔道造成约为40%的电流阻断. 阻断时间表现出电压相关性,随电压的升高而减小. 与其他生物纳米孔道相比,Aerolysin纳米孔道无需任何基因突变、化学修饰即可实现对单个寡聚核苷酸的超灵敏分析. 未来,Aerolysin纳米孔道将有可能应用于DNA损伤检测、microRNA分析以及其他基于纳米孔道的单分子分析检测.     

Aerolysin单分子界面的构建及高选择性单分子检测

提出了一种基于Aerolysin膜蛋白质分子构建单分子界面的方法, 运用蛋白质工程技术对单分子界面进行定点修饰, 所建立方法灵活、 可控且重复性好. 采用Poly(dA)₄为探针分子对修饰后的单分子界面进行了表征, 结果表明, 在孔口处的Arginine修饰影响了寡聚核苷酸的选择性. 为进一步理解Aerolysin单分子界面及合理设计功能性单分子界面提供了参考.