Having created the first mechanical device that can measure the mass of individual molecules, one at a time, a team of scientists has now devised nanodevices that can also reveal their shape.
That type of information is crucial when trying to identify large protein molecules or complex assemblies of protein molecules.
“You can imagine that with large protein complexes made from many different, smaller subunits there are many ways for them to be assembled. These can end up having quite similar masses while actually being different species with different biological functions,” explains Michael Roukes, professor of physics, applied physics, and bioengineering at Caltech and the co-corresponding author of the paper in Nature Nanotechnology.
