briwig at GLUE.UMD.EDU (Brian Michael Wiegmann) writes:
>Has anyone out there used, or know people that have used, the new Applied
>Biosystems stretch upgrade for the AB373 DNA sequencer.
>>Does it work as well as they claim ?
I have had part one of the two part process of the "stretch" upgrade
installed for a month. 20 gels X ~ 34 lanes. Conlusions: The $15,000.00
when I first heard the number seemed to be a little steep but I am
completely satisfied with the results.
Using Dye terminator, ds DNA and Taq, the 350-450 runs to the first N
(after editing) are now going out to 500-600. Forget these numbers because
everyone does different amounts of editing. Bottom line, we are getting
about 20% more base calls. When considering walking in and closure on a
gene, a 20% increase in length does wonders.
Now for a little good news/bad news. Part one drops the optics bench 10cm
so the well to read of the laser is that much longer. By changing the % gel
and the watts the analysis package is faked out and thinks everything is
normal,(the present algorithm fits). Part two of the upgrade gives you
longer glass so the well to read increases by another 10 cm. Unfortunately
the software can't be faked out _that_ much. PE/ABD is working feverishly
on Analysis 2.0 that will be the answer to are dreams. (yeah right). No
really.
Somehow with a combo of dye primers and or Sequanase or Taq you can fake
out the software. PE/ABD was showing 900 base reads in this fashion at a
recent user meeting. -Paul
Paul Morrison Dana1030
Molecular Biology Core Facility
Dana Farber Cancer Institute
Boston, MA
no connection to ABI aka PE/ABD ya da da, ya da da.
