News Article

Lucigen Corporation and Thermo Fisher Scientific Partner to Release New Mate Pair Library Technology for Ion Torrent Sequencing
Date: Aug 20, 2014
Author: Lucigen, Inc.
Source: Company Data ( click here to go to the source)

Featured firm in this article: Lucigen Corporation of Middleton, WI



August 20, 2014 -- The Ion PGM is a fast and cost-effective platform for next generation sequencing applications. The release of the Ion TrueMate™ Library Kit will expand the platform's capabilities by allowing long mate pair libraries up to 8 kb to be run on the PGM. Mate pair libraries are critical for de novo genome assembly, chromosomal rearrangement studies, and finishing genomes. Traditional fragment libraries produce large quantities of data but result in sequence gaps, misassembled contigs, and collapsed repeats due to short read lengths. Combining mate pair libraries with fragment libraries has been proven to achieve more accurate genome assemblies.

Developed at Lucigen using their NxSeq® mate pair technology, the Ion TrueMate Library Kit includes multiple innovations that enable high fidelity mate pair libraries without paired end sequencing on the PGM platform. The protocol and reagents have been optimized to eliminate chimera formation, with the inclusion of patent-pending ChimeraCode™ sequences allowing confirmation of actual mate pairs via bioinformatics. The TrueMate libraries demonstrate >90% efficiency of real mate pairs, compared to 30% or less with other platforms. Lucigen's new Accura™ high fidelity polymerase is also incorporated into the new product.

"Existing mate pair libraries contain a high percentage of chimeras that result in misassembled genomes. The mate pairs that are obtained from the TrueMate libraries achieve >90% efficiency, and when combined with Ion Fragment libraries, have shown tremendous promise for closing genomes, finishing BAC sequences, and obtaining accurate scaffold assemblies," states Lucigen CEO and Founder Dr. David Mead.

The TrueMate Library Kit will be sold for the PGM platform exclusively through Thermo Fisher, while Lucigen will perform library creation and sequencing services for customers globally.

The release of the Ion TrueMate library kit is the first of multiple mate pair kits in development by Lucigen. Future products will include the ability to create longer mate pairs of 20 kb or higher and the application of whole transcriptome sequencing via Full Length RNASeq protocols.