Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 81-07, Section: B
Advisor: Daniele, Michael;Thomas, John;Wang, Hong;Riehn, Robert
Thesis (Ph.D.)--North Carolina State University, 2019
Includes bibliographical references
Advancements in single molecule methods have paved a way to understand the details of biomolecular interactions with ever higher temporal and spatial resolution. Nanofluidics is one of the key techniques for single molecule biophysics with applications expanding to the field of biotechnology such as gene mapping, DNA sorting, and biosensing. In this work two different avenues of nanofluidics are explored. First, a nanofluidic metamaterial is designed and studied for the manipulation of transport of DNA through confined space. The manipulation is achieved by a combination of asymmetric nanochannels and junctions, which can be tuned with buffer flow. To understand the experimental observations of the transport of DNA through an asymmetric junction, a two-dimensional mean-field model of DNA at the junction is proposed. The nonequilibrium dynamics of confined DNA at the junction is probed with the proposed model and compared with the experimental results. Second, a combinatorial nanofluidic device is designed for the single molecule experiment of DNA-protein interactions. The device utilizes nanochannels, nanoslits, and nanogrooves for the confinement of DNA and active buffer exchange. The functionalities of the device for dynamic manipulation of DNA and combinatorial exchange of buffers in real-time are demonstrated with various experiments, such as dye diffusion, conformational changes of DNA with different ionic concentration, and restriction mapping of lambda DNA. Overall, the results of this thesis show that the combination of various nanofluidic geometries enables to design a novel nanofludic device for the manipulation of biomolecules at the single molecule level
Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Mich. : ProQuest, 2020
