Detection of nerve agent hydrolytes in an engineered nanopore

We report a stochastic nanopore sensing method for the detection of organophosphorus nerve agent hydrolysis products. By employing an engineered α-hemolysin single pore embedded in a planar lipid bilayer as the stochastic sensing element and β-cyclodextrin as a host molecule, trace amounts of soman and cyclosarin hydrolytes could be detected, with detection limits of 53 nM and 102 nM, respectively. Importantly, sarin, tabun, and VX hydrolysis products, as well as other common pesticides, do not interfere with detection of the analytes. The method offers the potential as a rapid and sensitive sensing technique for use in on-site analysis of nerve agents in environmental monitoring applications at the single-molecule level.