Bionano Genomics, San Diego, has announced the global commercial launch of direct label and stain (DLS) chemistry for sequence motif labeling. DLS is a nondestructive labeling chemistry that improves aspects of Bionano genome mapping. When used in the Bionano workflow, DLS supports sensitivity and resolution for structural variant discoveries and accurate and contiguous genome assemblies.
Prior to the DLS chemistry, Bionano offered its customers nick, label, repair, and stain (NLRS) kits, which use nicking endonucleases to make sequence-specific nicks, where fluorescently labeled nucleotides were subsequently incorporated, followed by a ligation reaction to repair the nicks. The NLRS process is highly robust and specific, but it introduces systematic double-stranded breaks that limited the contiguity of Bionano maps. Overcoming these systematic breaks often required the use of two different nicking enzymes to create two separate sequence motif maps that could be overlaid in analysis. Because DLS has no destructive steps in the workflow, the systematic molecule breaks are eliminated.
Erik Holmlin, PhD, MBA, Bionano Genomics.
“Last year, we introduced Saphyr, addressing the need for high-throughput users,” says Erik Holmlin, PhD, CEO of Bionano. “With the new direct labeling chemistry, we improve every aspect of Bionano genome mapping.
“With DLS, Saphyr gets twice the sample throughput for a fraction of the cost per genome,” Holmlin adds.
The primary applications of Saphyr in human genomics include structural variant discovery for translational and clinical research, including cancer, gene discovery, therapy development, and undiagnosed genetic disorders; in non-human genomics, applications include evolutionary biology, reference-quality genome assembly, selective breeding, and trait development.
