Towards Nanopore Proteomics: Enzyme-less single-molecule Analysis of full-length Proteins

Means to sequence DNA and RNA quickly and cheaply have revolutionised biology and medicine. The ability to analyse cellular proteins and their millions of variants would be an advance of comparable importance, but requires a fresh technical approach.

Nanopore technology offers single-molecule sensing platforms for ultra-long biopolymers. The aim is to leverage the long-read capability of the nanopore approach for full-length protein analysis. The group of Dr. Yjia use electroosmosis for the non-enzymatic capture, unfolding and translocation of individual polypeptides of more than 1200 residues by a protein nanopore.

By monitoring the ionic current carried by the nanopore, they locate post-translational modifications deep within the polypeptide chains, and thereby lay the groundwork for obtaining inventories of the proteoforms in cells and tissues.

This webcast will present a fresh approach to analyzing cellular proteins and their millions of variants using nanopore technology for single-molecule sensing of ultra-long biopolymers.