Noakes, M. T. et al. Nat. Biotechnol. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-019-0096-0 (2019).

Many of the promises of nanopore sequencing are being realized—DNA and RNA and their modifications can be directly sequenced at low cost and with little sample preparation—but there is still room for improvement when it comes to accuracy. As the nucleic acid makes its way through the pore, it is drawn by the current applied to the membrane, but its movement is slowed to discrete steps by a motor protein. During these steps in translocation, the degree to which the nucleotides within the pore block conductance is recorded and then computationally deconvoluted to yield a base-resolved sequence. However, irregular steps by the motor enzyme are sources of substantial error. Noakes et al. now correct for these irregularities by applying variable voltage to the membrane that complements the discrete stepping and allows the continuous probing of conductance at each nucleotide. They were able to improve the per-base accuracy from 62% with constant voltage to 79% with variable voltage.