Eppendorf announces first fruit of collaboration with Illumina

HAMBURG, Germany—Eppendorf recently announced the release of the epMotion automation method for Illumina’s TruSeq Stranded Total RNA library preparation kit for next-generation sequencing (NGS) as “Illumina Qualified” and notes that “additional automated methods for NGS library preparation from Illumina are currently in development” as part of the companies’ continuing collaboration.

The “Illumina Qualified” tag indicates that Illumina’s analyses of libraries prepared with this epMotion method have shown them to perform comparably to those prepared manually. The reason for an automated method, the companies note, is that NGS sample preparation involves extensive manual processing that can be subject to human error.

The automation of labor-intensive steps in NGS sample preparation—pipetting, mixing, temperature control and magnetic separation, for example—brings about “a standardized and streamlined process, with significantly reduced hands-on time and minimization of human errors,” Eppendorf notes of the method, which is tailored for 8, 16 or 24 samples of 100 ng to 1000 ng total RNA and reportedly gives sequencing-ready libraries in nine to 12 hours.

“While this is not much faster than the manual process,” Eppendorf notes, “the hands-on time is significantly reduced as the automated process needs less than one hour preparation time in total.”

“Eppendorf’s method for TruSeq Stranded Total RNA provides our customers with another great option for high throughput automation,” said Peter Fromen, senior director of product marketing at Illumina. “Eppendorf is one of the leading providers of automation to NGS users, and we are looking forward to additional methods from them in the near future.”