Sequencing-by-synthesis (SBS)

The Illumina detection paradigm: reversibly fluorescent 3'-blocked nucleotides are incorporated one cycle at a time into clonally amplified clusters on a flow cell; laser imaging at each cycle reads the incorporated base by its colour. SBS generates short reads (150-300 bp) at high throughput, distinguishing it from Sanger's long-read (700-1000 bp) single-molecule extension.