We are pleased to announce the launch of a new version of our chemistry, SMRT Cells, and software for the Sequel System. The V4 software, V2 chemistry, and SMRT Cells tuned for the new sequencing chemistry kits will be available on January 23rd.
These new releases allow the system to achieve mean read lengths of 10-18 kb, with half of the data in reads >20 kb, and throughput of 5-8 Gb. This enhancement improves results for important applications such as structural variant detection, targeted sequencing, metagenomics, minor variant detection, and isoform sequencing. The software release includes updates to the base calling algorithm that increase accuracy, as well as new features designed for clinical research applications. In addition to the performance improvements, the Sequel System is now capable of loading 80 kb sequencing libraries.
This release improves users’ ability to perform low-fold structural variant detection and key targeted sequencing applications. For structural variant detection, they can now accomplish the same or better quality of results for structural variant analysis using, on average, half the number of SMRT Cells compared to the previously available chemistry. Long reads provided by the new chemistry also enable the detection of larger-scale structural variants; in particular, there is a 3-fold increase in sensitivity of insertions over 5 kb. For targeted sequencing, the new chemistry and software give users more flexibility. For example, for minor variant detection, customers can either gain detection sensitivity or reduce cost per sample with increased sample multiplexing.
In a statement for the release, Kevin Corcoran, our Senior Vice President of Market Development, said, “This release is part of our continued commitment to increasing the performance of the Sequel System, and we are very pleased with the data we are seeing both internally at our beta-test sites.”
January 9, 2017 | General