Inferring relative proportions of DNA variants from sequencing electropherograms

Determination of the relative copy number of single-nucleotide sequence variants (SNVs) within a DNA sample is a frequent experimental goal. Various methods can be applied to this problem, although hybridization-based approaches tend to suffer from high-setup cost and poor adaptability, while others (such as pyrosequencing) may not be accessible to all laboratories. The potential to extract relative copy number information from standard dye-terminator electropherograms has been little explored, yet this technology is cheap and widely accessible. Since several biologically important loci have paralogous copies that interfere with genotyping, and which may also display copy number variation (CNV), there are many situations in which determination of the relative copy number of SNVs is desirable.