Life Technologies' Ion Torrent has launched new versions of its PGM chips that increase throughput. Throughput for the 314 chip has increased to 100-megabases, throughput of the 316 chip is now 1-gigabase, and 318 throughput is now 2-gigabases, according to the company. The new chips are priced the same as the previous chips.
Additionally, the company has cut the list price of the PGM by 30 percent. Actual prices vary by geographic region.
New England Biolabs has launched the NEBNext Microbiome DNA enrichment kit, which separates microbial DNA from host DNA. To do this it uses MBD2-Fc protein, which binds to CpG-methylated DNA with very high specificity. The MDB2-Fc protein is attached to Protein A-coated magnetic beads, which enables removal of the contaminating host DNA in about 30 minutes, according to the company. The sample can be processed for downstream applications such as next-generation sequencing or qPCR.
WaferGen has launched SmartChip TE, a PCR-based target enrichment solution for sample preparation prior to targeted re-sequencing. The company said that the kit will be especially useful for clinical applications because it is based on proprietary technology that relies on massively parallel single-plex PCR reactions, where amplification is cleaner and better controlled, which will provide more accurate sequencing results.