IBTIBT-1002

 Published in journal Nature Nanotecnology on 20th december, 2009  Biomedical engineers had developed a method to make future genome sequencing faster and less expensive  A team led by Boston University Biomedical Engineering Professor Dr. Amit Meller working for detecting DNA molecules as they pass through silicon nanopores  It can detect much smaller amount of DNA sample than previously reported" said Dr. Meller

 Nanotechnology is the creation of FUNCTIONAL MATERIALS and SYSTEMS through MANIPULATION of matter on the NANOSCALE and exploitation of novel phenomena

IMPACT OF NANOTECHu
        Computing and Data Storage Materials and Manufacturing Health and Medicine Energy Environment Transportation National Security Space exploration

In traditional method DNA applification (PCR) stage is used to make DNA larger enough to be sequenced  They like photocopies of photocopies  come out less than perfect  Very expensive,  Time consuming and  Prone to errors The new method devloped which requires very less amount of DNA, Thus PCR step is removed

AgCl

KCl

KCl

Nanopore Chip

AgCl

Voltage Amplifier

 Detecting DNA molecules as they pass through silicon nanopores  Uses electrical fields to pass DNA through pore.  Strands of DNA passing through fournanometer-pores,  like threading a needle.  The longer the DNA strand, the more quickly it found the pore opening  Detection of long DNA strands -Thousands basepairs, or even more can be sequenced in single swipe

 High intensity electron beam of a Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM) for the fabrication of uniform nanopore arrays in Si-membranes  The chip uses layered electrodes to control the movement of DNA molecules called nanopore sequencing  Allows DNA to be passed through a sensor that would rapidly read off its genetic code  It could read long DNA without the Radio/ Fluorescent labels or Amplifying enzymes

 The system that used to identify DNA bases is a tunnel-like protein embedded in a membrane very similar to the flow of ions across the membrane in biological cells  Current that can be measured using an electrode similar to those used to study neurons in the lab

 When there is no DNA translocation, there is a background ionic current  When DNA goes through the pore, there is a drop in the background signal Correlation and changes of the drops in the signal uses to distinguish between individual nucleotides

DNA translocation event

Source: Viktor Stolc

 The researchers reduced the number of DNA molecules required By a factor of 10,000  From 1 billion sample molecules to 100,000

Less expensive Faster Accurate

 The rate of the movement of the DNA from nanopore, DNA templete floating around a nanopore  The DNA goes through the pore too fast Due to electric current  Meller and his team had optimize the effect by adding Salt Gradients around the pores  They used salt gradients to alter the electrical field around the pores, which increased the rate of DNA captured and  Shortened the lag time between molecules, thus reducing the quantity of DNA needed for accurate measurements.

o Next-generation sequencing technology will offer novel, rapid Nextways for : Personal genomics with detailed analysis of individual genes  Metagenomics, Metagenomics,  Genome characterisation,  Profiling of mRNAs,  Small RNAs,  Transcription factor regions,  Chromatin structures and  DNA methylation patterns etc. . .