Identifying individual proteins using nanopores and supercomputers — ScienceDaily

The amount and types of proteins our cells produce tell us important details about our health and how our bodies work. But the methods we have of identifying and quantifying individual proteins are inadequate to the task. Not only is the diversity of proteins unknown, but often, amino acids are changed after synthesis through post-translational modifications.

In recent years, much progress has been made in DNA reading using nanopores — minute membranes large enough to let an unspooled DNA strand through, but just barely. By carefully measuring the ionic voltage of the nanopore as DNA crosses over, biologists have been able to rapidly identify the order of base pairs in the sequence. In fact, this year, nanopores were used to finally sequence the entire human genome — something that was not previously possible with other technologies.

In new research out in Science magazine,…

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