Apparatus and method for the generation, separation, detection, and recognition of biopolymer fragments

A method for determining the DNA sequences of a plurality of DNA samples, the method using spectral signals obtained by spectrographic detection of electrophoretically separated labeled DNA fragments in a plurality of migration lanes, the fragments in each of said samples being produced from one or more DNA templates primed with one or more sequencing primers and being labeled with dyes having distinctive spectral properties, the method comprising the sequential steps of:

• (1) binning spectrographic signal intensities acquired at each of a plurality of observation times from each of said plurality of migration lanes into a spatial signal set to obtain a plurality of spatial signal sets for each said observation time and into spectral signal sets where each spatial signal set represents the distinctive spectral properties of one of a plurality of said dyes, wherein each spatial signal set and each spectral signal set contain signal intensities from one migration lane, wherein each migration lane contains the fragments from one DNA sample, said plurality of dyes being used to label fragments in said sample;
• (2) repeating step (1) for spectrographic signal intensities acquired at each observation time to obtain time behaviors of said spectral signals;
• (3) comparing for each spatial signal set the time behaviors of said spectral signals in each of said plurality of spatial signal sets with time behaviors of a set of prototype signals corresponding to a set of prototypes;
• (4) selecting prototypes from said set of prototype signals that most closely match said spectral signals;
• and
• (5) outputting the selected prototypes, thereby determining the sequences of said plurality of DNA samples;
• wherein said spectrographic signal intensities are input from a transmission imaging spectrograph which detected signal intensities measured simultaneously for said plurality of migration lanes and for said plurality of spectral values at each of said plurality of observation times;
• and wherein each of said migration lanes contains one or more sets of said labeled DNA fragments, said labeled DNA fragments in each said set being characterized by being produced from a certain DNA template primed with a certain sequencing primer and having a certain nucleotide at the 3′ end, wherein each set of said labeled DNA fragments in each sample is labeled with one or more dyes distinguishable by distinctive spectral properties from the dyes labeling the other sets of fragments in said sample.