Electrostatic manipulation of DNA in microfabricated structures

Abstract

An electrostatic method of DNA manipulation is studied. An analysis of the orientation of DNA under an electric field is presented, and observations of its behavior under a high-intensity field that are created in microfabricated structures are made. It is shown that the orientation takes place at a field strength of 10/sup 6/ V/m and a frequency around 1 MHz. The stretch and shrink of an individual molecule is observed as the field is switched on and off. The molecular size (i.e. number of base pairs) is obtainable by measuring the stretched length of the molecule. A special field configuration is designed for efficient molecular size determination using this principle. Techniques for aligning and positioning an individual molecule and cutting DNA at an arbitrary location are developed.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>