Nanopores could map small changes in DNA that signal big shifts in cancer

The method threads DNA strands through a tiny hole,

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called a nanopore, in an atomically thin sheet of material with an electrical current running through it. The study was published in the inaugural issue of the journal npj 2D Materials and Applications, a new journal from Nature Press.

"One or a few methylations is not a big deal, but if there are many of them and they are packed close together, then it's bad," said study leader Jean-Pierre Leburton, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Illinois. "DNA methylation is actually a starting process for cancer. So we want to detect how many of them there are and how close together they are. That can tell us at which stage the cancer is."

Other attempts at using nanopores to detect methylation have been limited in resolution. Researchers begin by punching a tiny hole in a flat sheet of material only one atom or molecule thick. The pore is submerged in a salt solution and an electrical current is applied to drive the DNA molecule through the pore. Dips in the current alert researchers that a methyl group is passing through. However, when two or three are close together, the pore interprets it as one signal, Leburton said.

Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-04-nanopores-small-dna-big-shifts.html#jCp