Pyrosequencing for SNPs

With a large part of the Human Genome Project behind us and several smaller genomes already finished, we are facing new challenges. Until now most of the collective effort has been focused on sequencing genomes, but the activities to interpret and use this information are now rapidly accelerating. Technology developed for the long read lengths typically required for sequencing projects are not necessarily well suited for the emerging needs of applied genomics where identification of known genes or the study of Single Nucleotide Polymorphism, (SNP) can be achieved with only a few bases of sequence information. Several new methods such as Taqman, Molecular Beacons, Invader Probes, Mini sequencing (single base extension) etc are being developed to meet these new needs but very few of these has the ability to read more than one base. This paper describes Pyrosequencing, a new way of sequencing DNA based on Sequencing By Synthesis and with the ability to sequence short to medium length stretches of DNA with high accuracy.