Oxford Nanopore

Nanopore sequencing principle. Openly licensed schematic used as a general visual guide.

Oxford Nanopore is part of the Nanopore Wiki learning path. Oxford Nanopore Technologies develops nanopore sequencing instruments, flow cells, chemistry, and software for real-time DNA and RNA sequencing.

Core concepts

• The platform reads electrical signals produced as molecules pass through nanopores.
• Device families include portable and higher-throughput instruments.
• Output can include raw signal files, basecalled reads, alignments, and analysis reports.
• Performance depends on chemistry, flow cell quality, library preparation, basecaller model, and analysis settings.

Typical sequencing workflow

Step	Description
1	Prepare DNA or RNA library according to the assay.
2	Load library onto a flow cell and start sequencing.
3	Basecall raw signal into sequence reads and quality scores.
4	Run quality control, alignment, assembly, variant calling, modification calling, or classification.

Typical applications

• Long-read genome sequencing.
• Metagenomics and pathogen surveillance.
• Transcriptomics and direct RNA sequencing.
• Structural variant and modification detection.

Common pitfalls

• Comparing results without chemistry and model versions.
• Ignoring read quality, pore count, run yield, and sample degradation.
• Presenting research use as clinical guidance without validation.

Related pages

• MinION
• Nanopore sequencing
• Bioinformatics
• Platforms

References

• Oxford Nanopore Technologies
• Oxford Nanopore Technologies official site