Efficient sequencing of the human genome will require the development of new methods that are less expensive and orders of magnitude faster than current technology. Recent advances in laser-based methodology suggest that a mass spectroscopic DNA sequencing technique may surmount present limitations. This contribution will focus on the use of laser vaporization and laser ionization to prepare single stranded DNA for high speed sequencing in the gas phase. As a first step in the implementation of a mass spectroscopic sequencing approach, we have shown that single-stranded DNA molecules having chain lengths of over 1000 nucleotides can be laser vaporized into the gas phase with no discernible strand cleavage. This observation provides the basis for the time-of-flight (TOF) mass spectral-based sequencing experiment that we are developing. To determine the DNA sequence the experiment will be repeated for the four complimentary dideoxy sequencing reactions. The realization of this method would allow a 300 base DNA sequence to be determined in less than one second. At that rate, an instrument based on this technology could potentially generate sequencing data in excess of 25 million bases per day.

Date Published: 24 June 1993
PDF: 11 pages
Proc. SPIE 1891, Advances in DNA Sequencing Technology, (24 June 1993); doi: 10.1117/12.146710

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 1891:
Advances in DNA Sequencing Technology
Richard A. Keller, Editor(s)