Sequencing Bacterial Artificial Chromosomes

Over the last 7 years, there have been enormous changes to the methods being used to sequence DNA. These changes include the increased use of fluorescent dyes to label DNA in the sequencing reaction, improvements to automated sequencers, and the use of high-throughput methods for preparing and sequencing DNA samples. The results of these developments have been to improve sequence accuracy, greatly increase the rate of sequence output, and, most important, reduce the cost. While further developments are to be expected, note that the basic sequencing chemistries are direct developments of the dideoxy chain-termination method of Sanger et al. (1 ).