
Originally Posted by
Jarek Duda
Yes, there are a few random factors which would have some small influence on this speed and still it's stochastic process - sometimes it will quicker catch 'nucleotide carrier' of smaller concentration ... its why it would be required to process given ssDNA a few times and use some Bayesian analysis to determine the sequence.
Still it should be many degrees of magnitude faster than e.g. pyrosequecing in which each nucleotide requires macroscopic time cycle.
To reduce such effect we could somehow mount straightened DNA and choose really large differences in concentrations (even like 1:10:100:1000)
The movement of polymerase could be watched optically (for example by attaching to it something producing light, like luciferase and surround the space with CCD).