the invention is based on the discovery that the sequence of monomers in a polymeric biomolecule can be determined in a self - contained , high pressure reaction and detection apparatus , without the need for fluid flow into or out from the apparatus . the pressure is used to control the activity of enzymes that digest the polymeric biomolecule to yield the individual monomers in the sequence in which they existed in the polymer . high pressures modulate enzyme kinetics by reversibly inhibiting those enzymatic processes which result in a higher average activation volume , when compared to the ground state , and reversibly accelerating those processes which have lower activation volumes than the ground state . modulating the pressure allows the experimenter to precisely control the activity of the enzyme . conditions can be found , for example , where the enzyme removes only one monomer from the biomolecule before the pressure is again raised to a prohibitive level . the identity of the single released nucleotide or amino acid can be determined using a detector that is in communication with a probe in the detection zone within the reaction vessel .