Messing and colleagues employed shotgun sequencing to sequence the genome of cauliflower mosaic virus, the first genome sequenced by the shotgun method. They developed the shotgun DNA sequencing method with single and paired synthetic universal primers. The method is based on fragmenting DNA into small sizes, purifying them by cloning, and defining the start of sequencing with a short oligonucleotide. Because fragmentation produces overlapping fragments, sequences can be concatenated by overlapping sequence information, thereby reconstructing contiguous sequences (contigs).
Order of authorship in the original publication: Messing, Gardner, Howarth....

Digital facsimile from PubMedCentral at this link.