Front Cover: Discrimination of single‐stranded DNA homopolymers by sieving out G‐quadruplex using tiny solid‐state nanopores

DOI: 10.1002/elps.201800537 The cover picture shows the application of a nanopore sensor being developed as a promising single-molecule technology for DNA sequencing at single-base resolution. A tiny nanoscale silicon nitride nanopore was fabricated by transmission electron microscope, the fabricated nanopore is a bit larger than the diameter of a single-stranded DNA but smaller than the dimension of G-tetramers. Then the nanopore could be used to sieve out G tetramers making sure only single-stranded DNA homopolymers could translocate through the nanopore. Interestingly, the DNA bases could be identified and differentiated by measuring the respective ionic current blockades.