Mark Akeson's research is focused on the use of nanopore detectors - instruments built around a tiny pore in a membrane or thin, solid-state wafer. These pores are just big enough to allow a single strand of DNA to pass through. Akeson and his collegues use the detectors to understand the dynamics and structure of DNA duplex ends, including those of retrotransposons and HIV. Akeson also investigates the coupling of processive DNA-modifying enzymes to nanopores, both protein and solid-state. Together with UCSC Professors William Dunbar and David Deamer, he has demonstrated enzymatic control of single DNA in nanopores with sequence specificity and real-time feedback control.
Summary
Published articles Show More
Sequence-specific detection of individual DNA polymerase complexes in real time using a nanopore.
Published in Nature Nanotechnology
Nanoscale pores have potential to be used as biosensors and are an established tool for analysing the structure and composition of single DNA or RNA molecules. Recently, nanopores have been used to measure the binding of enzymes to their DNA substrates. In this technique, a polynucleotide bound to an enzyme is drawn into the nanopore by an applied ...
Microsecond time-scale discrimination among polycytidylic acid, polyadenylic acid, and polyuridylic acid as homopolymers...
Published in Biophysical Journal
Single molecules of DNA or RNA can be detected as they are driven through an alpha-hemolysin channel by an applied electric field. During translocation, nucleotides within the polynucleotide must pass through the channel pore in sequential, single-file order because the limiting diameter of the pore can accommodate only one strand of DNA or RNA at ...
Sensitivity to anesthesia by pregnanolone appears late in evolution.
Published in Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
The anesthetic effect of certain steroids in vertebrate systems is well documented, but it is not known if these compounds can cause anesthesia in simpler organisms. To answer this question, ether, short-chain alkanols, and pregnanolone were tested for their ability to induce anesthesia in 20 aquatic species from 7 phyla. Organisms were placed in w...