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Review
. 2023 May 31;13(6):598.
doi: 10.3390/bios13060598.

Unlocking the Power of Nanopores: Recent Advances in Biosensing Applications and Analog Front-End

Miao Liu  1 , Junyang Li  1 , Cherie S Tan  1
Affiliations
Review

Unlocking the Power of Nanopores: Recent Advances in Biosensing Applications and Analog Front-End

Miao Liu et al. Biosensors (Basel). .

Abstract

The biomedical field has always fostered innovation and the development of various new technologies. Beginning in the last century, demand for picoampere-level current detection in biomedicine has increased, leading to continuous breakthroughs in biosensor technology. Among emerging biomedical sensing technologies, nanopore sensing has shown great potential. This paper reviews nanopore sensing applications, such as chiral molecules, DNA sequencing, and protein sequencing. However, the ionic current for different molecules differs significantly, and the detection bandwidths vary as well. Therefore, this article focuses on current sensing circuits, and introduces the latest design schemes and circuit structures of different feedback components of transimpedance amplifiers mainly used in nanopore DNA sequencing.

Keywords: DNA sequencing; biosensors; chiral molecules; nanopores; protein sequencing; transimpedance amplifiers.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Eighteen biological nanopores used for nanopore sensing. (A) Sixteen biological nanopores drawn to scale. Reproduced with permission from [92]. Copyright (2022) Elsevier. (B) The biological nanopore Cytotoxin K (CytK). Reproduced with permission from [93]. Copyright (2022) Versloot, R.C.A. et al., published by American Chemical Society. (C) The biological nanopore YaxAB. Reproduced with permission from [94]. Copyright (2023) Ki-Baek Jeong et al., published by Springer Nature.
Figure 2
Figure 2
(a) Solid-state nanopores be integrated with front-end amplification chips. (b) Cross-sectional schematic of solid-state nanopores. (c) Optical micrograph of the preamplifier integrated with solid-state nanopores. (d) Magnified image of the preamplifier integrated with solid-state nanopores. (e) Optical image of a solid-state silicon nitride membrane chip mounted in the fluid cell. (f) Transmission electron microscope image of a silicon nitride nanopore with a diameter of 4 nm. Reproduced with permission from [119]. Copyright (2012) Springer Nature.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Transimpedance amplifier with different feedback elements. Reproduced with permission from [16]. Copyright (2022) Elsevier.
Figure 4
Figure 4
(A) Feedback network of discrete-time TIA and (B) feedback network of continuous-time TIA [144]. Reproduced with permission from Liu, Fan, Chen, Wan, Mao, and Yu, Front. Electron., published by Frontiers Media, 2022.
Figure 5
Figure 5
A typical front-end architecture utilizes the CDS-based discrete-time method [144]. Reproduced with permission from Liu, Fan, Chen, Wan, Mao, and Yu, Front. Electron., published by Frontiers Media, 2022.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Schematic diagram of an integrator–differentiator transimpedance amplifier (I-D-TIA).
Figure 7
Figure 7
The hybrid semi-digital transimpedance amplifier (HSD-TIA) structure incorporates a noise cancellation methodology.
Figure 8
Figure 8
A fixed-threshold window comparator utilized in the continuous-time technique.
Figure 9
Figure 9
A differential circuit and low-pass filter are included in the continuous-time method.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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