A linkurl:paper;http://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.0604351103 published this week in PNAS provides a possible glimpse at the near-term future of linkurl:next-gen sequencing;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/23051/ technologies. Susanne Goldberg, Justin Johnson, and colleagues at the J. Craig Venter Institute compared the cost of sequencing six marine microbial genomes using traditional Sanger sequencing chemistry (using an Applied Biosystems 3730xl), 454 Life Sciences? pyrosequencing-based approach, and a hybrid of the two. They observe that a hybrid strategy, blending 5.3x Sanger sequencing coverage with two rounds of 454 sequencing, typically produces a higher quality sequence than does sequencing to 8x coverage with Sanger chemistry alone (albeit at a cost increase of 10% to 20%), and suggest a 'two-tiered sequencing strategy' for future microbial sequencing projects. 'This hybrid sequencing strategy has the potential for being the first in years to have a major impact on the sequencing community,' the authors write. Indeed, they estimate the hybrid approach can reduce the cost of...
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