Time-of-Flight Nanopore Technology for Proteomics

There is at present no cost-effective method for proteomics in sequencing and profiling a pre-defined set of proteins in a biological sample.

The proposed project Time-of-Flight Nanopore Technology for Proteomics (TOF-NTP) aims at combining our novel solid-state nanopore (SSNP) technology for generation of high-fidelity unique signals with artificial neural network for analysis of massive intriguingly-entangled data to explore proteomics.

The novelty lies in the conceptual development and experimental demonstration of a low-noise TOF-NTP biochip based on silicon nanofabrication using low-permittivity dielectric materials.

Linked by a flow channel in-between, the two nanopores forming a TOF-SSNP device are lateral and both below 5 nm in size.

The project will focus on 1) fabrication of a TOF biochip integrating various possible TOF-SSNP device designs and 2) initial proteomics by determining the respective sequence and concentration of 10 proteins via unfolding (linearising), tagging (to destined sites on the proteins for signal amplification) and then electrically driving them through the SSNP twins.

For each protein consecutively passing through the SSNP twins, two signal trains superposed on the time-dependent ionic current traces are generated. Correlating the two signal trains and analysing their waveforms lead to protein identification: sequencing.

Analysing the respective appearance frequency of proteins in a sample results in their concentration information: profiling.