Latest long-read sequencing technology now available

We are happy to announce that the latest long-read sequencing technology is now available at UC Davis. Our new PacBio Sequel II sequencer is up and running.

> The Sequel II increases the yield 8-fold compared to our previous Sequel (version 1).  With this increase, PacBio sequencing is becoming about 5 times more affordable on the new sequencer. A SMRT-cell can generate about 5 million reads (on average). 

> In addition to increasing the read numbers, the chemistry was improved resulting in longer polymerase reads and longer HiFi reads. The Sequel II  can currently generate high-fidelity (HiFi) long-read data of 15 kb read length (up to 99.9% accuracy). It has been shown that such data can improve the accuracy of genome assemblies.

> The improved yields mean that sequencing a singleSequel II SMRT-cell should be sufficient for the genome assembly of the average-sized plant genome (~700 Mb; provided the DNA sample is of high quality).

> The HiFi data are comparatively easy to analyze. The main applications are genome assemblies, structural variant detection, haplotype phasing, full-length transcript sequencing (Iso-Seq), and long-amplicon sequencing. 

> Our very first data (Iso-Seq RNA-Seq data, second image) had a mean polymerase-read length of 53 kb and a polymerase-read N50 of 137 kb. The data provided 4 million high-quality CCS read sequences.

> The Sequel II Version-2 chemistry, expected next month, will further increase yields and polymerase read lengths (third image) resulting in ~30 Gb of HiFi data per SMRT-cell.

Please look out for PacBio workshop announcement in the next weeks and also see this information.

We are happy to discuss all sequencing options - please choose a time for a consultation appointment here.