A Visual Guide to DNA Sequencing

https://www.asimov.press/p/dna-sequencing

by surprisetalk • 5 months ago

58 15 5 months ago

asimov.press

voidUpdate• 5 months ago

So it's not just a strong magnifying glass and tiny tweezers?

adrian_b• 5 months ago

The nanopore technique described towards the end is not that far from your description.

dnautics• 5 months ago

they kinda tried that and it is my understanding that it sucks. One example of "direct linear mapping":

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/5080/78a97f4778eee488e11032...

ben10403• 5 months ago

I worked in this space for over a decade. It's so weird to me to see the workhorse sequencing hardware like the ABI 37x/37xx series, 454, and Illumina machines now as literal museum pieces.

searine• 5 months ago

Agreed. Seeing million dollar sequencers on ebay for a few thousand bucks makes me want to reach for my wallet, but the I realize there are no reagents for it anyway.

ben10403• 5 months ago

Back in 1999 I joked that the ABI 3700 looked like a $300K mini fridge. Now you could actually get one on eBay and convert one for cheap.

rootsudo2• 5 months ago

Can you expand more on this? I’ve seen said machines too but I assumed you could use different solutions and just have a contract with sigma Aldrich to get what’s needed - what else would someone have to do to put a used sequencer to good use?

urza• 5 months ago

We need PC revolution for biology. Put a box on every table we can tinker with.

conception• 5 months ago

You can get a USB sequencer for about 150 bucks

OkayPhysicist• 5 months ago

The equipment necessary is broadly within the range that early PCs were. There's just a lot fewer biohackers than there were computer hackers.

jonn_smith• 5 months ago

Nice writeup, but missing 2 newer sequencers:

Roche's Sequencing By Expansion platform and UltimaGenomics' platform

(edited for clarity)

mfld• 5 months ago

Yes, they are only mentioned in the last section. Other notable misses would be Ion Torrent and MGI. Still a nice article with a focus on the key technologies.

joshuamcginnis• 5 months ago

I culture fungus, perform DNA extraction, run PCR (polymerase chain reaction - the process used to clone the gene(s) I want to sequence), and gel electrophoresis in my home lab. I then ship tubes of the DNA to mclab.com where for about $3 per sample, they'll run sanger sequencing and email me the data the next day. Works great for DNA barcoding and plasmid sequencing.

A Visual Guide to DNA Sequencing

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