Patent ID: 7720613

Claim:
A method for sequencing a nucleic acid, comprising: a. measuring a CID spectrum for said nucleic acid using a spectrometer to create a measured CID spectrum; b. providing a reference sequence of said nucleic acid; c. calculating a CID spectrum for said reference sequence; d. comparing the values of said CID spectrum for said reference sequence with the values of said measured CID spectrum; e. determining the degree of correspondence between said measured CID spectrum and said calculated CID spectrum to generate a fitness value; f. for each position of said reference sequence i. replacing the nucleotide at the position in said reference sequence with a different nucleotide selected from the group consisting of A, C, G, and T; ii. repeating steps c), d) and e); iii. comparing said fitness value generated in step e) to that of the reference sequence to identify the lower fitness value; iv. repeating steps i), ii) and iii) with the remaining different nucleotides; v. comparing the fitness values to identify the lowest fitness value at said position, thereby determining the identity of the nucleotide at that position; and g. selecting for each position the nucleotide having the lowest fitness value, and h. generating a user-readable output comprising the sequence of nucleotides selected in step g.