"If nature was very unkind, then the DNA would always fluctuate so much as it passes through the nanopore that measuring the current would not give us any information about what base is present at a particular location," explained Michael Zwolak, a graduate student in physics at the California Institute of Technology who contributed to the study. "However, we have identified a particular way to operate the nanopore/electrode system that suppresses some of the fluctuations so they aren't so great as to destroy the distinguishability of the bases."
The researchers caution that there are still hurdles to overcome because no one has yet made a nanopore with the required configuration of electrodes, but they think it is only a matter of time before someone successfully assembles the device. The nanopore and the electrodes have been made separately, and although it is technically challenging to bring them together, the field is advancing so rapidly that they think it should be possible in the near future.
In addition to the speed and low cost of the nanopore method, the researchers calculate that it will ultimately be significantly less error-prone than current methods.
"The DNA sequencing method we propose has the potential of having fewer errors than the present method, which is based on the Sanger method," said Johan Lagerqvist, a graduate student in physics at UCSD and the lead author on the paper. "It should be possible to sequence strands of DNA that are tens of thousands of base pairs in length, possibly as long as an entire gene, in one pass through the nanopore. With the Sanger
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Source:University of California - San Diego