Now Available: Sequel II System Delivers ~8 Times as Much Data as Previous System

We’re thrilled to announce the launch of the Sequel II System, reducing project costs and timelines with approximately eight times the data output compared to the previous Sequel System. It enables customers to comprehensively detect human variants ranging in size from single nucleotide changes to large, complex structural variants. The system is also ideal for standard applications such as de novo assembly of large genomes and whole transcriptome analysis using the Iso-Seq method.
The Sequel II System is based on the proven technology and workflow underlying the previous version of the system, but contains updated hardware to process the new SMRT Cell 8M. Building upon the October 2018 release, which delivered highly accurate individual long reads (HiFi reads), the Sequel II System also produces these Sanger-quality reads (>99.9% accuracy), now at approximately eight times the scale.
Extensive analyses of Sequel II data demonstrate that the system can provide equivalent or higher accuracy compared to the Sequel System. HiFi reads can enable comprehensive human variant detection with ≥95% precision and recall of structural variants, ≥99% precision and recall of single nucleotide variants, and ≥96% precision and recall of insertions and deletions with as little as 15-fold coverage.
You don’t have to take our word for it. To ensure the system performed well, we ran an early access program with five institutions: Wellcome Sanger Institute, HudsonAlpha Genome Sequencing Center, University of Maryland Institute for Genome Sciences, Broad Institute, and The Icahn Institute at Mount Sinai. All five early access sites have subsequently purchased their first Sequel II Systems.
According to early access user Luke Tallon, Scientific Director, Genomics Resource Center at the University of Maryland Institute for Genome Sciences: “In our experience, the Sequel II System was essentially production-ready right out of the box. We have used it for a range of applications and sample types — from human genome sequencing to metagenome and microbiome profiling to non-model plant and animal genomes — and results have been very good. For our lab, which handles tens of thousands of microbial samples each year, the Sequel II System has the potential to enable really deep yet cost-effective microbiome and metagenome sequencing.”
Another early access user, Jeremy Schmutz, Faculty Investigator at the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology, had this to say: “It’s amazing to see lower-cost human genome sequences coming from the Sequel II System approaching the quality and completeness of the human reference genome, which took billions of dollars and many years to produce. We have already used the Sequel II instrument for human genomes as well as complex plant genomes and the results have been at least as good as the data we were getting from the original Sequel System with the added benefit of much higher throughput.”
To learn more, please listen to our on-demand webinar featuring an overview of the Sequel II System with presentations by several early access customers.  Or contact us to talk to one of our application specialists to discuss your research.