Nanopore sequencing: Review of potential applications in functional genomics

Molecular biology has been led by various measurement technologies, and increased throughput has developed omics analysis. The development of massively parallel sequencing technology has enabled access to fundamental molecular data and revealed genomic and transcriptomic signatures. Nanopore sequencers have driven such evolution to the next stage. Oxford Nanopore Technologies Inc. provides a new type of single molecule sequencer using protein nanopore that realizes direct sequencing without DNA synthesizing or amplification. This nanopore sequencer can sequence an ultra-long read limited by the input nucleotide length, or can determine DNA/RNA modifications. Recently, many fields such as medicine, epidemiology, ecology, and education have benefited from this technology. In this review, we explain the features and functions of the nanopore sequencer, introduce various situations where it has been used as a critical technology, and expected future applications.