Sanger Institute Procures OpGen’s Optical Mapping System to Reduce Genome Sequence Assembly Cost

OpGen announced that Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute has procured its Argus optical mapping solution to minimize cost and time of the entire genome sequence assembly. The institute’s Mapping and Archive Sequencing Division has planned to start the optical mapping of parasites and bacteria.

Advancements in DNA sequencing field have boosted the quantity of available sequence data and have reduced the cost significantly. However, such advancements have left much of the genome unordered and uncharacterized. Genome centers have found that the sequence finishing process has become a bottleneck in the entire genome sequencing.

Researchers used an optical map as an entire genome scaffold to recognize the gaps in the target specific regions and sequence for more sequencing. This significantly reduces the requirement for numerous sequencing, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and cloning reactions that are normally associated in standard finishing methods.

Optical mapping also offers a sequence independent technique for validating entire genome sequence assembly. Now, sequencing projects will be completed quickly through increased throughput and reduced genome sequencing assembly cost.