Paragon Genomics Introduces CleanPlex® UMI Panel for Ultrafast, Precise Analysis of Lung Cancer Hotspot Mutations at ASHG 2018

HAYWARD, Calif., Oct. 11, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Paragon Genomics, Inc. today announced the introduction of its CleanPlex^® UMI Lung Cancer Panel at the upcoming 2018 Annual Meeting of the American Society of Hunan Genetics (ASHG). The company also announced poster presentations and an Exhibitor Education Event at ASHG, which will include data and case studies on how Paragon Genomics' CleanPlex ultra-high multiplexed and molecular-barcoded next-generation sequencing (NGS) panels can help researchers and assay developers accelerate and streamline their targeted sequencing studies.

The new CleanPlex UMI Lung Cancer Panel is a targeted resequencing assay designed for rapid and high confidence detection of ultralow-frequency variants across the hotspot regions of 23 genes frequently associated with lung cancer. It is the first in a soon-to-be-launched family of CleanPlex UMI ready-to-use and custom NGS panels.

"Our CleanPlex UMI technology is a major advance for those seeking highly accurate detection of low-frequency variants and mutations for liquid biopsy applications, in a rapid, simple and easy-to-use format," said Tao Chen, founder and CEO of Paragon Genomics. "It is the only amplicon-based technology that incorporates stranded unique molecular identifiers (UMIs) to remove background noise and increase accuracy. The Lung Cancer Panel is our first using the CleanPlex UMI technology. We will be adding more ready-to-use panels in the coming months and the technology will be available in our custom NGS panels later this year."

The CleanPlex UMI technology is specifically designed to improve and simplify detection of low-frequency mutations in circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) and FFPE DNA for liquid biopsy, tumor profiling and related applications. It incorporates unique molecular identifiers that distinguish between the two strands of DNA, thereby enabling correction of PCR and sequencing errors to achieve more accurate results. Sequencing-ready libraries can be prepared using a single-tube workflow in just 3.5 hours. CleanPlex UMI technology demonstrates excellent sensitivity and specificity--ultralow-frequency variants at 0.1% allele frequency can be confidently detected with high specificity using only 30 ng of DNA.

Paragon Genomics researchers are presenting a poster¹ at ASHG that discusses and characterizes the performance of the CleanPlex UMI technology. In addition to using UMIs to remove PCR and sequencing errors, Paragon Genomics also incorporated unique dual indexes (UDIs) to ensure accurate demultiplexing of sequencing reads during analysis. This results in reliable detection of low-frequency variants, down to 0.1%, using a fast and simple library construction workflow.

Paragon Genomics is also sponsoring an education event² that  will discuss its CleanPlex and CleanPlex UMI technologies on October 18 starting at 12:30pm.

Additionally, the company is presenting a second ASHG poster³ demonstrating the utility of CleanPlex NGS panels for rapid tumor mutation burden (TMB) profiling. The poster shows that CleanPlex technology is capable of creating high quality amplicon libraries with high uniformity, low GC bias and sensitive variant calling, even for ultra-multiplexed libraries with ~20,000 amplicons, using a simple workflow that requires less than 3 hours to complete.

Paragon Genomics' CleanPlex is a proprietary, ultra-high multiplexed NGS target enrichment technology featuring an innovative PCR background cleaning chemistry that allows tens of thousands of amplicons to be multiplexed in a single reaction pool, allowing a large number of targets to be interrogated in a single assay. The CleanPlex technology is available as ready-to-use panels or as customized assays designed and optimized using the company's advanced panel design algorithm. CleanPlex NGS Panels are available for use with Illumina or Ion Torrent platforms.

^{1 – ASHG Poster Program #1770W: CleanPlex® UMI Lung Cancer Panel for Detecting Low-Frequency Variants Using a Targeted Amplicon Sequencing Approach and Molecular Barcodes, Oct. 17, 3:00-4:00pm.
2 - Paragon Exhibitor Education Event: Accelerate and Streamline Your Targeted Sequencing Studies Using CleanPlex® Ultra-High Multiplexed and Molecular-Barcoded NGS Panels, San Diego Convention Center, Room 28D, Upper Level, Oct. 18, 12:30-1:45pm
3 – ASHG Poster Program #929F: Variant Detection with an Ultra-Multiplexed 20,000-Amplicon CleanPlex® NGS Panel, Oct. 19, 2:00-3:00pm.}

Paragon Genomics' CleanPlex^® products are for Research Use Only.

About Paragon Genomics
Paragon Genomics (paragongenomics.com) is a leader in amplicon-based target enrichment and library preparation solutions to accelerate the development of next-generation sequencing (NGS)-based assays for research and clinical testing. The company designs high performance and ultra-multiplexed amplicon NGS panels and develops NGS library preparation chemistries for analyzing difficult, clinically-relevant samples. It strives to make the design of custom NGS assays easily available to a broad range of users, with expert counsel and rapid turnaround. Privately-held Paragon Genomics is located in Hayward, California. 

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SOURCE Paragon Genomics