Microarray sequence capture speeds large-scale resequencing of targeted genom...( Researchers at Baylor College of Med...)

Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine and Roche NimbleGen Inc., a fully integrated part of Roche Applied Science, today have published details of a highly efficient and cost-effective method for capturing targeted regions of the genome via NimbleChip microarrays in preparation for high-throughput 454 Sequencing. The technology, called sequence capture, enables fast and accurate enrichment of thousands of selected genomic regions, either contiguous or dispersed, such as segments of chromosomes or all genes or exons. The study, entitled Direct Selection of Human Genomic Loci by Microarray Hybridization, appears online (ahead of print) in the journal Nature Methods¹.

In light of the success of the current sequence capture technology, Baylors Human Genome Sequencing Center (HGSC) has signed on as an early access customer to Roche NimbleGens sequence capture technology. As presented on October 10, 2007, at the J. Craig Venter Institutes Genomes, Medicine, and the Environment (GME) conference, Roche NimbleGen and 454 Life Sciences, working with Dr. Richard Gibbs, professor and Director of the HGSC, will create a whole-genome human exome (all exons) microarray, with the goal of resequencing the entire human exome.

Resequencing of genes or other genomic regions of interest is a key step in detecting mutations associated with various complex human diseases, such as cancer, asthma and heart disease. The predominant method for selection of specific genomic regions for resequencing has primarily relied on PCR (polymerase chain reaction) to enrich for specific DNA fragments. However, PCR is limited in the length of sequence it can amplify, is difficult to scale or multiplex for the enrichment of thousands of fragments, and has limited performance in the repetitive regions typical of complex genomes, such as human. The sequence capture microarray technology bridges the gap between next-generation DNA sequencing technology and current sample
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