The applications of nanopores in studies of proteins

Taoli Ding; Antony K Chen; Zuhong Lu

doi:10.1016/j.scib.2019.07.029

The applications of nanopores in studies of proteins

Sci Bull (Beijing). 2019 Oct 15;64(19):1456-1467. doi: 10.1016/j.scib.2019.07.029. Epub 2019 Jul 29.

Authors

Taoli Ding¹, Antony K Chen², Zuhong Lu³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Biomedical Engineering, College of Engineering, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.
² Department of Biomedical Engineering, College of Engineering, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China. Electronic address: chenak@pku.edu.cn.
³ Department of Biomedical Engineering, College of Engineering, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China; State Key Laboratory of Bioelectronics, School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, China. Electronic address: zhlu@seu.edu.cn.

PMID: 36659703
DOI: 10.1016/j.scib.2019.07.029

Abstract

Nanopores are a label-free platform with the ability to detect subtle changes in the activities of individual biomolecules under physiological conditions. Here, we comprehensively review the technological development of nanopores, focusing on their applications in studying the physicochemical properties and dynamic conformations of peptides, individual proteins, protein-protein complexes and protein-DNA complexes. This is followed by a brief discussion of the potential challenges that need to be overcome before the technology can be widely accepted by the scientific community. We believe that with continued refinement of the technology, significant understanding can be gained to help clarify the role of protein activities in the regulation of cellular physiology and pathogenesis.

Keywords: Nanopores; Protein-DNA interactions; Protein-protein interactions; Proteins.

Publication types

Review