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MinION

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From Molecupedia, the encyclopedia of very small things
Palm-sized nanopore DNA and RNA sequencer from Oxford Nanopore Technologies
MinION
DeveloperOxford Nanopore Technologies
TypeNanopore sequencer
Release dateEarly access April 2014; general sale May 2015
ConnectivityUSB-C (Mk1D)
Dimensions55 x 13 x 125 mm (Mk1D)
Mass130 g (Mk1D)
Websitenanoporetech.com

The MinION is a sequencer for DNA and RNA made by Oxford Nanopore Technologies that fits in a hand and plugs into a laptop. A disposable flow cell holds the nanopores, a chip beneath them measures the ionic current through each, and software turns the current into a sequence. Oxford Nanopore described it in February 2012, sent it to outside laboratories from April 2014, and put it on sale in May 2015.[1][2] Its current model, the Mk1D, weighs 130 g and measures 55 by 13 by 125 mm; the company says it generates "tens of gigabases of data" in a run, in reads "from short to ultra-long (20 bp to >4 Mb)".[3]

Users have carried it into the field. It has read Ebola virus genomes in Guinea and DNA aboard the International Space Station, and it sequenced the first human genomes to be read on a handheld device.[4][5][1]

Design

The flow cell at the center of the device carries up to 2,048 individually addressable nanopores, which an application-specific integrated circuit controls in groups of 512, so that at most 512 channels are read at a time.[2] Each pore is a protein channel in a polymer membrane. A motor protein draws a strand through it at a controlled speed, and the current through the pore changes with the bases in it; see Nanopore sequencing for the mechanism.

The MinION of 2016 weighed about 90 g.[2] The Mk1D weighs 130 g and connects to a laptop by USB-C.[3]

A strand is read while it moves, so the computer can act on a read before it ends. In "Read Until", published in 2016, the computer recognizes an unwanted molecule while it is still in the pore and reverses the voltage to eject it, freeing the pore for the next one.[6] The MinKNOW program runs the instrument, and Dorado turns the current into bases.[7]

History

In February 2012 Oxford Nanopore presented its first data and named two systems, the GridION and the MinION, and in the following months it prepared the handheld device for launch. The MinION Access Programme began in spring 2014, and researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, wrote in 2016 that early-access users received it in April.[1][2]

Early results were rough. In one laboratory at Santa Cruz the average identity of single-molecule reads to a reference sequence rose from 66 percent in June 2014 to 85 percent in November 2014, and five laboratories that sequenced the same strain of Escherichia coli reported accuracies of 92 to 93 percent for reads that combined both strands of a molecule.[8] Papers from access-programme users appeared the same year, among them "A first look at the Oxford Nanopore MinION sequencer" and a reference dataset for a bacterial genome.[9][10] General sale began in May 2015.[1]

The first human genomes were sequenced on MinIONs in December 2016. The company introduced the MinIT, a companion device, in October 2018. The Flongle, an adapter that takes a smaller flow cell, came in March 2019, and a new portable MinION, the Mk1C, in March 2020.[1]

Field use

In April 2015 a team carried a sequencing laboratory to Guinea "in standard airline luggage", under 50 kg of it, and sequenced 142 Ebola virus samples with results less than 24 hours after receiving a positive sample. Sequencing itself took as little as 15 to 60 minutes.[4][8] A 2017 protocol for sequencing Zika virus directly from clinical samples says that its MinION version "does not require an Internet connection for analysis, making it suitable for field applications with limited connectivity".[11]

In August 2016 a NASA astronaut used a MinION aboard the International Space Station for the first DNA sequencing in space.[5] The benchmark paper that followed ran equal mixtures of DNA from lambda phage, E. coli and a mouse, in nine runs over six months that produced 276,882 reads "with no apparent decrease in performance over time". From the space data the E. coli genome, about 4.6 million bases, was assembled at 100 percent consensus identity, and the mouse mitochondrial genome at 96.7 percent.[12] Groups have also used the device in the Antarctic Dry Valleys and in an Ecuadorian rainforest, where it identified species from DNA barcodes read on the spot.[13][14]

In Molecular Reality's usage

Molecular Reality Corporation uses the MinION as its example of a biological pore. In the company's field guide, "Biological pores are protein channels that bacteria build themselves; the famous MinION sequencer uses those. Protein pores are delicate flowers."[15] The company's own reader design, the MR1 Nanopore Reader, carries the status line "Built and measured: not yet."[16]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d e "History". Oxford Nanopore Technologies. Retrieved October 25, 2026.
  2. ^ a b c d Jain, Miten et al. (2016). "The Oxford Nanopore MinION: delivery of nanopore sequencing to the genomics community". Genome Biology 17: 239. doi:10.1186/s13059-016-1103-0.
  3. ^ a b "MinION". Oxford Nanopore Technologies. Retrieved October 25, 2026.
  4. ^ a b Quick, Joshua et al. (2016). "Real-time, portable genome sequencing for Ebola surveillance". Nature 530: 228-232. doi:10.1038/nature16996.
  5. ^ a b "Kate Rubins, NASA's DNA sequencing scientist, returning to Earth". The Planetary Society. October 28, 2016.
  6. ^ Loose, Matthew; Malla, Sunir; Stout, Michael (2016). "Real-time selective sequencing using nanopore technology". Nature Methods 13: 751-754. doi:10.1038/nmeth.3930.
  7. ^ "Dorado". GitHub. Oxford Nanopore Technologies. Retrieved October 25, 2026.
  8. ^ a b Deamer, D.; Akeson, M.; Branton, D. (2016). "Three decades of nanopore sequencing". Nature Biotechnology 34 (5): 518-524. doi:10.1038/nbt.3423.
  9. ^ Mikheyev, Alexander S.; Tin, Mandy M. Y. (2014). "A first look at the Oxford Nanopore MinION sequencer". Molecular Ecology Resources 14: 1097-1102. doi:10.1111/1755-0998.12324.
  10. ^ Quick, Joshua et al. (2014). "A reference bacterial genome dataset generated on the MinION portable single-molecule nanopore sequencer". GigaScience 3: 22. doi:10.1186/2047-217X-3-22.
  11. ^ Quick, Joshua et al. (2017). "Multiplex PCR method for MinION and Illumina sequencing of Zika and other virus genomes directly from clinical samples". Nature Protocols 12: 1261-1276. doi:10.1038/nprot.2017.066.
  12. ^ Castro-Wallace, Sarah L. et al. (2017). "Nanopore DNA sequencing and genome assembly on the International Space Station". Scientific Reports 7: 18022. doi:10.1038/s41598-017-18364-0.
  13. ^ Johnson, Sarah S. et al. (2017). "Real-Time DNA Sequencing in the Antarctic Dry Valleys Using the Oxford Nanopore Sequencer". Journal of Biomolecular Techniques 28: 2-7. doi:10.7171/jbt.17-2801-009.
  14. ^ Pomerantz, Aaron et al. (2018). "Real-time DNA barcoding in a rainforest using nanopore sequencing: opportunities for rapid biodiversity assessments and local capacity building". GigaScience 7. doi:10.1093/gigascience/giy033.
  15. ^ "Keltar's Field Guide to Molecular Reality". Molecular Reality Corporation. August 2026.
  16. ^ "MR1 Nanopore Reader". GitHub. October 16, 2026.
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