Active polymer translocation through flickering pores

TL;DR

This study uses Langevin dynamics simulations to show that active, oscillating pores with sticky walls can significantly enhance polymer translocation efficiency and selectivity compared to static channels.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of flickering, sticky-walled pores as a means to improve polymer translocation performance and selectivity.

Findings

Oscillating pores increase translocation efficiency.

Stickiness influences translocation gain.

Flickering pores enable high selectivity.

Abstract

Single file translocation of a homopolymer through an active channel under the presence of a driving force is studied using Langevin dynamics simulation. It is shown that a channel with sticky walls and oscillating width could lead to significantly more efficient translocation as compared to a static channel that has a width equal to the mean width of the oscillating pore. The gain in translocation exhibits a strong dependence on the stickiness of the pore, which could allow the polymer translocation process to be highly selective.