An Error-Eliminating Fix from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Overcomes Big Problem in "3rd-gen" Genome Sequencing

COLD SPRING HARBOR, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The next “next-gen” technology in genome sequencing has gotten a major boost.

A quantitative biologist at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) and collaborators have published results of experiments that demonstrate the power of so-called single-molecule sequencing, which was recently introduced but whose use has so far been limited by technical issues.

The team, led by CSHL Assistant Professor Michael Schatz and Adam Phillippy and Sergey Koren of the National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center and the University of Maryland, has developed a software package that corrects a serious problem inherent in the newest sequencing technology: the fact that every fifth or sixth DNA “letter” it generates is incorrect. The high error rate is the flip side of the new method’s chief virtue: it generates much longer genome “reads” than other technologies currently used, up to 100 times longer, and thus can provide a much more complete picture of genome structure than can be obtained with current, “2nd-gen” sequencing technology.