DNA Sequencing + color = pony bead necklace

Next abstract, yes? I haven't painted horses yet... life and friends and school are a bit busy. But this is after the horses!

Before Sun Sinks by Yangyang Pan

And a lecture slide blew my mind yesterday, I'm going to try to explain this:

credit to Dr. Matthew Sachs and Dr. Joseph Sorg,
taken from BIOL 351 lecture slides

The dATP, dGTP, dCTP, and dTTP are nucleotide bases. If you take off the hydroxyl group, you get the corresponding ddATP, ddGTP, ddCTP, and ddTTP, which are chain-terminating nucleotides because the 5' phosphate of the next nucleotide can't bond without that 3' hydroxyl. Researchers marked the dd's with flourescent markers.  If you make many single-strand sequences from the original strand's pattern using the d-nucleotides and flourescent dd-nucleotides, the chains will always end with the chain-terminating dd-nucleotides at random lengths. And these dd's are the nucleotides that fluoresce! So you use electrophoresis to order the synthesized strands by weight (corresponding to length), and you get a colorful sequence. How ingenious is that? I hope you were able to follow.

This sequencing technique can't separate larger fragments due to computer-reading errors, so it isn't as useful for large projects. I'm more interested in the logic behind the process. It makes sense. It deals with chemistry. And it processes genomes. "How neat is that?"

Serve only the Lord your God and fear Him alone. Obey His commands, listen to His voice, and cling to Him.  Deuteronomy 13:4