This article was originally published Oct. 21.
Illumina will promote Caliper Life Sciences' LabChip XT and LabChip GX platforms as well as Sage Science's Pippin Prep system for sequencing library preparation under separate co-marketing agreements, the companies said last week.
Caliper's LabChip XT is a preparative microfluidic platform for separating DNA fragments of different sizes that uses multi-channel disposable chips to run up to four samples in less than 30 minutes. According to Caliper, the platform "was developed with direct input from Ilumina."
Sage's Pippin Prep is a preparative gel electrophoresis system that also automates the separation and recovery of different sized DNA fragments. The Broad Institute recently said that is has installed eight of the instruments (IS 10/12/2010).
Caliper's LabChip GX is used to analyze the size, concentration, and integrity of DNA or RNA as a quality-control step during sample preparation.
Under an OEM supply agreement with Agilent Technologies that was recently renewed for another seven years, Caliper also provides its microfluidic chips for the Agilent Bioanalyzer 2100, which is used by many customers of next-gen sequencers to determine the size and quality of DNA during sample prep.
The Broad Institute said recently that it has switched from the Bioanalyzer to the LabChip GX system, which is compatible with 96-well and 384-well plates.
Both Caliper's and Sage's platforms are alternatives to traditional gel electrophoresis methods used in library preparation for next-gen sequencing.