Methods for Determining Base Locations in a Polynucleotide

Background

An abasic site (i.e., an apurinic or apyrimidinic site) in a DNA or RNA strand is one in which the base is not present, but the sugar phosphate backbone remains intact. UC Santa Cruz researchers discovered that nanopore sequencers can readily detect the positions of abasic sites within a DNA strand during sequencing. This invention capitalizes on this discovery by using enzymes to generate abasic sites at places on a DNA strand that contain modified bases. The DNA strand can then be sequenced using nanopore sequencing, thereby providing a way of detecting modified bases.

Technology Description

This invention involves a method of detecting epigenetically modified cytosines in genomic DNA using nanopore sequencing. The DNA containing or suspected of containing such modified cytosines are treated with a deaminase and glycosylase. Doing so creates abasic sites, which can readily be detected using nanopore sequencing.

Applications

• DNA sequencing
• genetic analysis
• identifying epigenetic markers

Advantages

• detects a wide spectrum of modified DNA bases

Intellectual Property Information