New Tool Cracks Genomic Code Quicker Than Ever

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New Tool Cracks Genomic Code Quicker Than Ever

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=46955

US and Australian scientists have pioneered a new hybrid method for

genomic sequencing that is faster and cheaper than state of the art

technologies.

The breakthrough will be welcomed in medical and biotechnology

circles where there is rising demand for genome-sequencing

technologies. The new hybrid method combines the best of new and old

code cracking methods for " fingerprinting " the genetic basis of life.

Scientists from the US-based J. Craig Venter Institute and the

University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia published the

findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy.

" Cracking the entire, genetic code of an organism is expensive and

until recently has relied in its fundamentals on a 30 year old

technology that involves a physical separation of gene fragments, "

says Dr Torsten , a study co-author and senior research fellow

at the University of New South Wales.

" A newer method which has emerged in the past year uses real-time,

light-based observations of gene synthesis to reveal genomic

information. It produces genomic information up 100 times faster than

the old technology. "

Using the genomes of six ocean bacteria, the scientists evaluated the

utility and cost effectiveness of the old and new methods to show

that a hybrid method was better than either method on its own. They

found that combining the advantages of the two sequencing methods in

a hybrid approach produced better quality genomic information.

The team found that the traditional method known as 'Sanger'

sequencing worked best at sequencing large segments of the genomes,

while the newer method known as '454 pyrosequencing' was more adept

at sequencing smaller, more difficult sections, such as unclonable

regions and gaps induced by secondary structures. The hybrid

sequencing approach enabled the scientists to more easily close

sequencing gaps between genome fragments compared with previous

techniques.

The researchers suggest that the hybrid technique will become the

preferred method for sequencing small microbial genomes, as the

Sanger method is more capable of sequencing larger segments of

DNA. " The new hybrid approach has generated exceptional results for

several, marine microbes and we hope that our findings will kick-

start other genome projects that were previously constraint by

economic considerations " , Dr says.

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PNAS early edition July 10-14, 2006; ARTICLE #06-04351

A Sanger/pyrosequencing hybrid approach for the generation of high-

quality draft assemblies of marine microbial genomes by ne M. D.

Goldberg; ; Dana Busam; Steve Ferriera;

Friedman; Halpern; Saul A. Kravitz; Kelvin Li; Yu-Hui ;

Strausberg; Granger Sutton; Eli Venter; Marvin Frazier; J.

Craig Venter J. Craig Venter Institute.