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John M. S. Bartlett.pdf - Bio-Nica.info

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Sequencing 337<br />

49<br />

Sequencing<br />

A Technical Overview<br />

David Stirling<br />

1. Introduction<br />

The huge advances that have been made in human (and other species) genome<br />

projects have been lead by, and have themselves fueled, tremendous innovations in<br />

the field of sequencing. These innovations have lead to a specialization, with very<br />

expensive equipment, often in core sequencing centers or services. Until the cost of<br />

automated sequencing equipment falls considerably, the economics of scale mean that<br />

unless an investigator has a huge amount of sequencing to perform, they are most likely<br />

to be best served by using these services rather than by investing in the technology<br />

themselves. There is always a temptation in such situations to treat the sequencing as a<br />

black box, without worrying too much how the data are generated. This is a mistake. A<br />

clear understanding of the principals involved will not only aid the design of sequencing<br />

strategies but will also help in the interpretation of less than perfect data.<br />

DNA/RNA sequence analysis has become fundamental to the understanding of<br />

biological processes. The foundations of this science were established in 1977 when<br />

Maxam and Gilbert (1) described a method for sequencing by base-specific chemical<br />

cleavage. Subsequently, Sanger and co-workers (2) developed a method for enzymatic<br />

sequencing using chain terminators. Both techniques produce populations of labeled<br />

DNA fragments that can be electrophoretically resolved to reveal the base sequence.<br />

Many different strategies have been developed to improve on these initial approaches<br />

and to make genome-sequencing projects feasible; all owe a great debt to those original<br />

protocols.<br />

2. Chemical DNA Sequencing<br />

In the original Maxam-Gilbert method of DNA sequencing, target DNA is radioactively<br />

labeled at one end (3′or 5′ end), which acts as the reference point for determining<br />

the positions of the remaining bases. This labeled DNA is processed with four basespecific<br />

reactions. First, a base-specific chemical modification, then a chain cleavage<br />

of modified bases.<br />

These methods have fallen from popularity, both because of the toxicity of the<br />

reagents (dimethyl sulphate, hydrazine, potassium permanganate) and the development<br />

From: Methods in Molecular <strong>Bio</strong>logy, Vol. 226: PCR Protocols, Second Edition<br />

Edited by: J. M. S. <strong>Bartlett</strong> and D. Stirling © Humana Press Inc., Totowa, NJ<br />

337

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