THE APPLICATION OF NUMERICAL ESTIMATES OF BASE CALLING ACCURACY TO DNA-SEQUENCING PROJECTS

During DNA sequencing projects one of the most labour intensive and hi ghly skilled tasks is to view the original trace descriptions of gels and to adjudicate between conflicting readings, Given the current meth ods of calculating a consensus, the majority of the time employed in v iewing traces and editing readings is actually devoted to making the p oorer data fit the good data. We propose new consensus calculation alg orithms that employ numerical estimates of base calling accuracy and w hich when used in conjunction with an automatic detector of contradict ory data should greatly reduce the time spent checking and editing rea dings and hence improve DNA sequencing productivity.