New Products Posted to GenomeWeb: Dec 19, 2014

PerkinElmer EnLite NeoNatal TREC Kit

PerkinElmer announced the commercial availability in the US and Canada of the EnLite Neonatal TREC Kit, a screening test for Severe Combined Immunodeficiency (SCID), also known more commonly as “Bubble Boy” disease. PerkinElmer has received market authorization from the FDA and from Health Canada to offer the test, which provides a semi-quantitative determination of T-cell receptor excision circle (TREC), a circular DNA structure which is the primary identifiable marker for SCID. The test identifies newborns for confirmatory testing which leads to diagnosis.

GenBank 205 is now available via ftp from the National Center for Biotechnology Information.

The release has 179,295,769 non-WGS and non-CON records containing 184,938,063,614 base pairs of sequence data. Uncompressed flatfiles are approximately 688 gigabytes for sequence files only. The ASN.1 data require approximately 562 GB.

LabCorp this week announced the availability of a reflex test to identify enterovirus D68, which is associated with severe respiratory illness that primary affects children. Beginning in August 2014, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and state public health agencies reported a marked increase in pediatric patients with severe respiratory illness linked to EV-D68, LabCorp noted. The EV-D68 PCR test determines the presence or absence of enteroviral RNA in a respiratory sample, and if positive, reflexes to an EV-D68-specific PCR test. The EV-D68 subtyping PCR test can determine the presence or absence of the predominant D68 strain.

eBioscience, an Affymetrix business, announced the availability of the PrimeFlow RNA Assay, a flow cytometry assay capable of simultaneously detecting RNA and proteins within millions of cells at single-cell resolution. Current flow cytometry applications are limited to antibody-based interrogation of cell surface and intracellular proteins, eBioscience noted. With the PrimeFlow assay, researchers can now incorporate the simultaneous analysis of RNA transcripts and proteins to elevate their understanding of single-cell dynamics, the company said.