Saccharides, being one of the fundamental molecules of life, play essential roles in the physiological and pathological functions of cells. However, their intricate structures pose challenges for detection. Nanopore technology, with its high sensitivity and capability for single-molecule-level analysis, has revolutionized the identification and structural analysis of saccharide molecules. This review focuses on recent advancements in nanopore technology for carbohydrate detection, presenting an array of methods that leverage the molecular complexity of saccharides. Biological nanopore techniques utilize specific protein binding or pore modifications to trigger typical resistive pulses, enabling the high-sensitivity detection of monosaccharides and oligosaccharides. In solid-state nanopore sensing, boronic acid modification and pH gating mechanisms are employed for the specific recognition and quantitative analysis of polysaccharides. The integration of artificial intelligence algorithms can further enhance the accuracy and reliability of analyses. Serving as a crucial tool in carbohydrate detection, we foresee significant potential in the application of nanopore technology for the detection of carbohydrate molecules in disease diagnosis, drug screening, and biosensing, fostering innovative progress in related research domains.

Non-through and through nanopores were introduced to study the Raman band shift of suspended graphene by the substrate edge and the helium ion beam irradiation during the fabrication of nanopore in graphene. Before the ion beam irradiation, there is a blue-shift in the G band and G’ band of suspended graphene on the micro-scale non-through and through holes edge because of the n-type mixing for suspended graphene from the translocation. After different doses of the helium ion irradiation, G’ band Raman of suspended graphene on through are blue-shift, and the G band positions are red-shift. Helium ion irradiation introduces n-type doping during the graphene nanopore fabrication. The observed Raman shifts help us to gain more intrinsic properties of the graphene nanopore. Thus, Raman spectroscopy can be used as a quantitative diagnostic tool to character graphene-based nanopore.

Reversible photo-regulation on the folding/unfolding of the telomere G4 by SSN.

A salt-gradient aptamer-assisted nanopore strategy detects SARS-COVID-2 nucleocapsid protein with distinctive blockades. The molecular mechanism of protein–aptamer interaction was studied using an α-hemolysin nanopore to validate effectiveness.

Nanopore technology was introduced for the study of the dynamic interactions between bovine serum albumin (BSA) and 1,2-dioleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphoethanolamine (DOPE) phospholipids based on a modified nanopore. The results reveal that the interaction mechanism between DOPE and BSA is affected by the pH of the subphase. Far above the BSA isoelectric point (pH > 7), a weaker hydrophobic interaction and stronger electrostatic repulsion exist between the DOPE and BSA molecules. At pH = 7, the BSA structure nearly does not change, and the interaction is weak. At pH 5 and pH 6, BSA is marginally affected by the adsorption interaction, and below pH 5, the DOPE film becomes disordered, so there is a strong repulsive force interaction between the BSA and DOPE.