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Tadpoles by the tail

Nature Methods volume 2, pages 11–12 (2005)Cite this article

Intein-dependent, ultrasensitive, amplified detection of... anything

Many significant advances in biological inquiry have been dependent on the measurement of the absolute number of some molecular object. Yet deeper understanding of biological processes is often hindered by the technical limitations on how such measurements are performed. Most detection systems have at their core a specialized technique particular to the target molecule(s) under examination. Today's savviest researchers must therefore have at their tool belt a bounty of techniques ready for application. However, most of us feel some frustration when we must master yet another unfamiliar assay (often driven by a need to address some surly critique of our recently rejected paper!). How might things change if we could measure a wide range of molecular entities with ease and accuracy using a modular detection reagent that had a simple, multiplexable readout? And what if this did not require a guru's depth of knowledge, a need that, paradoxically, often causes researchers to abandon techniques either as too complicated or because they required acquisition of dyspeptic, expensive machinery? Further, would things be better if an often ignored, but crippling, variable inherent to most standard detection reagents could be dismissed as irrelevant?

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Figure 1: Creation of 'tadpoles' as detection reagents.

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  1. the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Stanford University, Stanford, 94117, California, USA

    Garry P Nolan

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  1. Garry P Nolan
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Nolan, G. Tadpoles by the tail. Nat Methods 2, 11–12 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmeth0105-11

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nmeth0105-11

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