NEB announces issuance of US patent for RNA-seq technology

New England Biolabs, Inc. (NEB^®) announces the issuance of United States Patent Number 8,999,677, which describes a novel method for retaining valuable strand-specific information contained within RNA transcripts. The method, which involves the second strand being selectively removed through the excision of UTP molecules, is proving to be particularly useful for RNA-seq applications.

The '677 patent is the first issuance in a family of applications licensed exclusively to NEB from Max Planck Gesellschaft in 2012. NEB has already introduced this technology to the market in products, such as its NEBNext^® Ultra™ Directional RNA Library Prep Kit. NEB has also sublicensed this technology to Illumina^®, Inc.

NEBNext products are a series of highly pure and cost-effective reagents that facilitate DNA and RNA library preparation for next generation sequencing. The innovative NEBNext product line includes the Ultra Library Prep kits for DNA and RNA, which address the increasing need for fast and robust performance, and also allow the use of low-nanogram amounts of input DNA or RNA – ensuring optimal data quality with flexible workflows.