Illumina announces availability of new TruSeq Custom Enrichment kits

Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN) today announced availability of its new TruSeq Custom Enrichment kits which enable researchers to economically design and target genomic regions of interest ranging from 700 kilobases (Kb) to 15 megabases (Mb) of cumulative DNA. The TruSeq Custom Enrichment kits leverage the same underlying assay design as Illumina's TruSeq Exome Enrichment kits and provide researchers with additional flexibility in their experimental design. Illumina is also releasing an introductory version of DesignStudio, a flexible online tool that enables the rapid design of custom probes for multiple applications, to simplify the assay design process and to provide customers with a comprehensive solution from target design to enrichment and sequencing on its portfolio of platforms.

"With the introduction of TruSeq Custom Enrichment kits and DesignStudio, we are expanding our customers' tool set for targeted resequencing applications. Whether targeting the complete coding region of the human genome or specific regions of interest, researchers can now rely on the same underlying assay and optimized sample preparation kits with multiplexing. TruSeq reagents generate uniformly covered sequence from less than a megabase to the entire coding region of the human genome rapidly and economically," said Illumina's Christian Henry, Senior Vice President, General Manager of Life Sciences and Chief Financial Officer.

TruSeq Custom Enrichment kits' targeted sample capture protocols are also fully compatible with Illumina's TruSeq DNA Sample Preparation kits and, together, deliver unprecedented ease of use and cost-effectiveness to high-throughput sample processing. In addition, the kits provide researchers with:

• A unique multiplexed sample enrichment (up to 12), decreasing hands-on time and dramatically lowering costs;
• The highest coverage uniformity and enrichment rates available with the lowest DNA input requirement (1ug);
• Easy to use master-mixed formulations and plate-based processing for up to 96 samples; and
• Internal quality controls for each assay step from library prep through enrichment.

"Illumina's workflow fully supports multiplexing and pooling prior to enrichment," said Darrell Dinwiddie, Ph.D., Director of Lab Operations, Center for Pediatric Genomic Medicine, Children's Mercy Hospitals and Clinics in Kansas City, Missouri. "This unique protocol will save us both time and money."

To enhance the power of TruSeq Custom Enrichment kits, Illumina is also releasing DesignStudio -- an online tool that simplifies the design and ordering of custom capture probes for targeted resequencing, and in the future, for other Illumina custom products, such as genotyping arrays. It includes interfaces with external databases for target selection, easy manipulation of sequences in and out of a final project design, and visual displays for region coverage and probe density. Together, these features reduce the time required for the design of custom projects, lessen the chance for error, and give researchers limitless options for experimental design.

Source: Illumina