Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • NEWS AND VIEWS

Thread, read, rewind, repeat: towards using nanopores for protein sequencing

Biologists would love to be able to read out the amino-acid sequence of any protein molecule as they would the letters of a sentence. A system in which a biological motor pulls proteins through a pore brings the dream closer to reality.
  1. Aleksei Aksimentiev

    1. Aleksei Aksimentiev is in the Department of Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA.

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

Soon after the completion of the Human Genome Project, it became clear that the approximately 20,000 DNA fragments identified as protein-coding sequences were woefully inadequate to account for the diversity of cellular structure and function in our bodies. It has since been shown that these sequences are only a starting point for protein diversity: sections of genes can be stitched together, thereby encoding protein variants that are not directly represented in the genome; and freshly made proteins are chemically modified to reprogram their function.

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Nature 633, 533-534 (2024)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-02664-3

References

  1. Alfaro, J. A. et al. Nature Methods 18, 604–617 (2021).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  2. Motone, K. et al. Nature 633, 662–669 (2024).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Kasianowicz, J. J., Brandin, E., Branton, D. & Deamer, D. W. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 93, 13770–13773 (1996).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  4. Manrao, E. A. et al. Nature Biotechnol. 30, 349–353 (2012).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  5. Cherf, G. M. et al. Nature Biotechnol. 30, 344–348 (2012).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  6. Ouldali, H. et al. Nature Biotechnol. 38, 176–181 (2020).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  7. Wang, K. et al. Nature Methods 21, 92–101 (2024).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  8. Brinkerhoff, H., Kang, A. S. W., Liu, J., Aksimentiev, A. & Dekker, C. Science 374, 1509–1513 (2021).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  9. Martin-Baniandres, P. Nature Nanotechnol. 18, 1335–1340 (2023).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  10. Nivala, J., Marks, D. B. & Akeson, M. Nature Biotechnol. 31, 247–250 (2013).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  11. Liu, J. & Aksimentiev, A. ACS Nanosci. Au 4, 21–29 (2024).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Competing Interests

A.A. is a consultant to Oxford Nanopore Technologies.

Subjects

Latest on:

Nature Careers

Jobs

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing

Search

Advanced search

Quick links