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Nanopore sequencing

Unfolding the path to nanopore protein sequencing

Nature Nanotechnology volume 18, pages 1259–1260 (2023)Cite this article

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A modified nanopore enables enzyme-free threading of single polypeptides to detect post-translational modifications

DNA sequencing with nanopores has had a considerable impact during the COVID-19 pandemic by identifying SARS-CoV-2 variants fast. More generally, nanopores provide step-changing portable and long-read sequencing1,2, simply by threading DNA strands through ring-like nanopores. Can nanopores also be used for protein sequencing? This is challenging, as the compactly folded proteins thread less easily through a nanopore than elongated DNA. Now writing in Nature Nanotechnology, Martin-Baniandres et al.3 describe how protein unravelling and threading helps determine the proteins’ biologically relevant post-translational modifications (PTMs) at single-molecule resolution.

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Fig. 1: Protein threading through a nanopore detects post-translational modifications.

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  1. Department of Chemistry, Institute of Structural and Molecular Biology, University College London, London, UK

    Adam Dorey & Stefan Howorka

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  1. Adam Dorey
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  2. Stefan Howorka
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Correspondence to Stefan Howorka.

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Competing interests

Stefan Howorka is inventor on a patent on a protein pore used by Oxford Nanopore Technologies plc for DNA sequencing.

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Dorey, A., Howorka, S. Unfolding the path to nanopore protein sequencing. Nat. Nanotechnol. 18, 1259–1260 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-023-01480-6

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