Lucigen and Thermo Fisher team up on next-gen sequencing

MIDDLETON, Wis.—Lucigen Corp. and Thermo Fisher Scientific announced in late August that they would partner to release new mate pair library technology for Ion Torrent sequencing. Noting that the Ion PGM from Life Technologies is a fast and cost-effective platform for next-generation sequencing applications, they say 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, they say, adding that 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, the partners assert.

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. 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 more than 90-percent efficiency, and when combined with Ion Fragment libraries, have shown tremendous promise for closing genomes, finishing BAC sequences and obtaining accurate scaffold assemblies,” said 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.

In related news, Lucigen announced in August that it would partner with Indian company Genotypic Technology to present the NxSeq technology at Genotypic’s Hands-on Workshop on NGS Applications at the company’s Bangalore Centre in mid-September. This marked the first collaboration between Lucigen and a genomics service provider in India to build awareness of its NxSeq technology.