Ab initio electron propagator calculations of transverse conduction through DNA nucleotide bases in 1-nm nanopore corroborate third generation sequencing.

Background: The conduction properties of DNA molecule, particularly its transverse conductance (electron transfer through nucleotide bridges), represent a point of interest for DNA chemistry community, especially for DNA sequencing. However, there is no fully developed first-principles theory for molecular conductance and current that allows one to analyze the transverse flow of electrical charge through a nucleotide base.

Methods: We theoretically investigate the transverse electron transport through all four DNA nucleotide bases by implementing an unbiased ab initio theoretical approach, namely, the electron propagator theory.