Using MDA for integration of heterogeneous components in software supply chains

Software product lines are increasingly built using components from specialized suppliers. A company that is in the middle of a supply chain has to integrate components from its suppliers and offer (partially configured) products to its customers. To satisfy both the variability required by each customer and the variability required to satisfy different customers’ needs, it may be necessary for such a company to use components from different suppliers, partly offering the same feature set. This leads to a product line with alternative components, possibly using different mechanisms for interfacing, binding and variability, which commonly occurs in embedded software development.     

Rapid electronic detection of probe-specific microRNAs using thin nanopore sensors

Small RNA molecules have an important role in gene regulation and RNA silencing therapy, but it is challenging to detect these molecules without the use of time-consuming radioactive labelling assays or error-prone amplification methods. Here, we present a platform for the rapid electronic detection of probe-hybridized microRNAs from cellular RNA. In this platform, a target microRNA is first hybridized to a probe. This probe:microRNA duplex is then enriched through binding to the viral protein p19. Finally, the abundance of the duplex is quantified using a nanopore. Reducing the thickness of the membrane containing the nanopore to 6 nm leads to increased signal amplitudes from biomolecules, and reducing the diameter of the nanopore to 3 nm allows the detection and discrimination of small nucleic acids based on differences in their physical dimensions. We demonstrate the potential of this approach by detecting picogram levels of a liver-specific miRNA from rat liver RNA.