Optically powered nanomotors are advantageous for clean nanotechnology over chemically fuelled nanomotors. The two motor types are further bounded by different physical principles. Despite the gap, we show here that...
Integrating rationally designed DNA molecular walkers and DNA origami platforms is a promising route towards advanced nano-robotics of diverse functions.
DFT-based first-principles calculations were carried out to understand the electronic structure difference among a backbone-free nucleobase, a backbonecontaining Na counterion nucleotide, and a backbone-containing H counterion nucleotide and their difference in the adsorption on graphene and on graphitic-carbon nitride. The study discovered that the inclusion of a sugar−phosphate backbone changes the electron affinity of most nucleobases from electron acceptors to electron donors. The methyl-terminated backbone-free model cannot replicate the steric effect induced by the sugar−phosphate backbone during the adsorption of nucleobases on 2D materials. Overall, we established that the sugar phosphate backbone should be included in the study of DNA nucleobase adsorption on 2D material. We also showed that when it comes to the adsorption on 2D materials, the backbone-containing H counterion model is superior to the Na counterion model because the Na counterion produces a LUMO near the Fermi energy, which may significantly affect the interaction with the 2D material.
Single-molecule trajectories from nonequilibrium unfolding
experiments
are widely used to recover a biomolecule’s intrinsic free-energy
profile. Trajectories of molecular motors from similar single-molecule
experiments may be mapped to biased diffusion over an inclined free-energy
profile. Such an effective potential is not a static equilibrium property
anymore, and how it can benefit molecular motor study is unclear.
Here, we introduce a method to deduce this effective potential from
motor trajectories with realistic temporal–spatial resolution
and find that the potential yields a motor’s stall forcea
quantity that not only characterizes a motor’s force-generating
capacity but also largely determines its energy efficiency. Interestingly,
this potential allows the extraction of a motor’s stall force
from trajectories recorded at a single resisting force or even zero
force, as verified with trajectories from two molecular motor models
and also experimental trajectories from a real artificial motor. This
finding drastically reduces the difficulty of stall force measurement,
making it accessible even to force-incapable optical tracking experiments
(commonly regarded as irrelevant to stall force determination). This
study further provides a method for experimentally measuring a second-law-decreed
least energy price for submicroscopic directionalitya previously
elusive but thermodynamically important quantity pertinent to efficient
energy conversion of molecular motors.
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