The technology platform detects
the interaction between a fluorescently-tagged
polymerase and a fluorescently modified nucleotide.
Polymerase is modified with a fluorescent donor molecule
and immobilized on a glass slide. Each nucleotide is
color coded with an acceptor fluorescent moiety.
During the extension reaction,
when a nucleotide is incorporated into the growing
polymer, energy transfers from the polymerase to the
nucleotide (FRET), stimulating emission of a
base-specific incorporation signature that is directly
detected in essentially real time.
Due to the nature of the
nucleotide modification on the gamma-phosphate, unlike
that of most of its competitors, VisiGen's approach does
not produce an altered DNA polymer that may negatively
impact polymerase activity.
Creating massively
parallel arrays (microarrays) of these nanomachines
will allow us to achieve a
sequencing rate of 1Mb/sec/machine.