The current document discusses a detection system comprising a mechanical change sensor that exhibits one or more mechanical changes when specifically interacting with entities within a target, each entity having a type, a mechanical-change-to-signal transducer that transduces the one or more mechanical changes into a signal, and an analysis subsystem that determines the types of entities within the target using the signal.

The present disclosure provides methods of treating patients having a respiratory disorder, methods of identifying subjects having an increased risk of developing a respiratory disorder, and methods of detecting human Arachidonate 15-Lipoxygenase (ALOX15) variant nucleic acid molecules and variant polypeptides.

The present disclosure relates to compositions of matter, methods, and systems for analyzing polymeric macromolecules, including polymeric macromolecules such as peptides, polypeptides, and proteins.

The present disclosure is directed to nonporous polymer particles having an average particle size of 1 to 10 microns and being functionalized with an enzyme, such as trypsin. The enzyme-immobilized particles, and immobilized enzyme reactors thereof, can be used in methods for on-line protein digestion.

The present invention provides a nanopore single-molecule protein sequencer, which mainly includes a nanopore array chip system, an ultra-low current detection system and a data processing and construction system; the chip mainly includes a chip of peptide charge screening, a chip of amino acid sequence reading based on a series of specific nanopores and the like, the design principle of which is as follows: a series of biological nanopores with amino acid targeted identification are designed according to properties such as hydrophilicity and hydrophobicity, polarity, and chargeability of amino acids, and characteristic ion flow signals of amino acids forming a protein to be detected in nanopore are obtained one by one; characteristic information of a protein sequence in each of the nanopores is acquired by an arrayed ultra-low current measurement system; a standard model peptide sequence information base is used for identifying, correcting, integrating and reading amino acid sequences.

Devices for detecting at least one target molecule in a sample are provided. The devices comprise a field-effect transistor and an aptamer attached to the field-effect transistor. The aptamer comprises a capture region and a stem region, wherein the target molecule can selectively bind to the capture region of the aptamer. The stem region can change a conformation of the aptamer when the capture region binds to the target molecule. Techniques for detecting a target molecule using such devices are also provided.

The present description provides methods, assays and reagents useful for sequencing proteins. Sequencing proteins in a broad sense involves observing the plausible identity and order of amino acids, which is useful for sequencing single polypeptide molecules or multiple molecules of a single polypeptide. In one aspect, the methods are useful for sequencing multiple polypeptides. The methods and reagents described herein can be useful for high resolution interrogation of the proteome and enabling ultrasensitive diagnostics critical for early detection of diseases.

The present invention provides methods for characterizing the composition of polymers. Common to these methods, the subunits of a charged polymer strand are moved by the force of electrophoresis across closely spaced electrodes so as to produce tunneling currents modulated by their passage and indicative of their chemical structure. Comparisons of the electronic signals thus obtained to those of known standards that have undergone similar electrophoresis are made so as to determine the composition of the polymer and the linear sequence of its subunits.

The invention described here may be used for: the detection and identification of biological agents that may be pathogenic; the sequencing of small linear RNAs that may be present in cells and those that have been linearized by the methods described herein; and the sequencing of linear genomic DNA, mRNAs, linear non-coding RNAs, and polypeptides.

Methods for nanopore-based protein analysis are provided. The methods address the characterization of a target protein analyte, which has a dimension greater than an internal diameter of the nanopore tunnel, and which is also physically associated with a polymer. The methods further comprise applying an electrical potential to the nanopore system to cause the polymer to interact with the nanopore tunnel. The ion current through the nanopore is measured to provide a current pattern reflective of the structure of the portion of the polymer interacting with the nanopore tunnel. This is used as a metric for characterizing the associated protein that does not pass through the nanopore.

Methods for performing non-reduced peptide mapping analysis of a protein of interest can include alkylating a protein of interest with N-ethyl maleimide (NEM) or an NEM analog under denaturing conditions to form an alkylated protein of interest; digesting the alkylated protein of interest with at least one digestive enzyme to form a peptide digest, and subjecting the peptide digest to liquid-chromatography-mass spectrometry analysis. The methods can be performed under mildly alkaline conditions.