DNA SEQUENCING WITH DYE-LABELED TERMINATORS AND T7 DNA-POLYMERASE - EFFECT OF DYES AND DNTPS ON INCORPORATION OF DYE-TERMINATORS AND PROBABILITY ANALYSIS OF TERMINATION FRAGMENTS

The incorporation of fluorescently labeled dideoxynucleotides by T7 DNA polymerase is optimized by the use of Mn2+, fluorescein analogs and four 2'-deoxyribonucleoside 5'-O-(1-thiotriphosphates) (dNTP-alpha-S's). The one-tube extension protocol was tested on single-stranded templates, as well as PCR fragments which were made single-stranded by digestion with T7 gene 6 exonuclease. Dye primer sequencing using four dNTP-alpha-S's was shown to give uniform termination patterns which were comparable to four dNTPs. Efficiency of the polymerase also appeared to improve with the dNTP-alpha-S's. A mathematical model was developed to predict the pattern of termination based on enzyme activity and ratios of ddNTP/dNTPs. This method can be used to optimize sequencing reactions and to estimate enzyme discrimination constants of chain terminators.