Nanopore Digital Counting of Amplicons for Ultrasensitive Electronic DNA Detection

Abstract

We demonstrate the feasibility of using the single molecule sensing nanopore as a digital counter to enumerate the amplicons for ultrasensitive electronic nucleic acid analysis. We show that the nanopore digital counting approach could capture the DNA replication dynamics in the LAMP reaction and has the potential to be used in a qualitative test as well as in a quantitative test. By keeping nanopores as simple as possible and by leveraging the amplification assay’s high sensitivity, the amplification-coupled nanopore digital counting approach provides a promising optics-free method for highly sensitive and specific nucleic acid testing.