In the May issue of PLOS Computational Biology, scientists from UC San Diego and the University of Notre Dame report on a study that could open up the field for nanopore-based protein identification – and eventually proteomic profiling of large numbers of proteins in complex mixtures of different types of molecules.
According to UC San Diego computer science and engineering professor Pavel Pevzner, senior author on the paper, the new approach identifies proteins by analyzing the distinct electrical signals produced when the molecules pass through a nanopore (which acts like a sieve). In theory, said Pevzner, nanopores could allow researchers to characterize large numbers of proteins in complex mixtures.
