Towards Longer Degradations on a Sequenator

Abstract

Despite new and fascinating micro sequencing techniques successful sequencing nowadays is not necessarily dependent upon very specialized equipment. It has to be realized that the great majority of laboratories are still working with commercially available sequenators, for example the Beckman sequencers. Although there are limitations they are still fit for many tasks, provided that sufficient amounts of protein are available, or that it can easily be obtained in radioactive form. With these prerequisites met such instruments can provide very long degradations which have a substantial effect on the efficiency of a sequence determination. The good efficiency (the number of residues finally placed in sequence divided by the number of fragments isolated to prove that sequence, see Walsh et al. (1)) reduces both the amount of protein and the labour which have to be employed in the production of fragments. Thus, with sufficient amounts of protein available, sequence determination with standard equipment can be quite economical.