Improved performance of pyrosequencing using single-stranded DNA-binding protein

In modern biology, there is a critical need to develop a high-throughput and inexpensive platform for DNA sequencing. Pyrosequencing is a nonelectrophoretic single-tube DNA sequencing method that takes advantage of cooperativity between four enzymes to monitor DNA synthesis. In these studies, single-stranded DNA-binding protein (SSB) was added to the primed DNA template prior to the Pyrosequencing reaction. The addition of SSB to a Pyrosequencing reaction system resulted in a read length of more than 30 nucleotides. Improvements were observed as: (i) increased efficiency of the enzymes, (ii) reduced mispriming, as measured by nonspecific signals, (iii) an increase in signal intensity during the reaction, (iv) higher accuracy in reading the number of identical adjacent nucleotides in difficult templates, and (v) longer reads. The usefulness of these results for future Pyrosequencing applications is discussed. (C) 2000 Academic Press.