NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Toyota Motor announced today that it has licensed proprietary DNA analysis technology for selective breeding to the Kazusa DNA Research Institute, Eurofins Genomics, and GeneBay.
Specific terms of the licensing agreements were not disclosed.
Toyota developed the system — called genotyping by random amplicon sequencing-direct, or GRAS-Di — by combining sample preparation technology capable of amplifying tens of thousands of locations in the genome with next-generation sequencing instrumentation. According to the company, GRAS-Di enables DNA analysis at two-thirds the cost and nine-tenths the man-hours as conventional technologies.
Toyota said that GRAS-Di can be used for selective breeding in agriculture, as well as in the livestock, forestry, and fishery industries, and added that it expects it to be put into use in contract-based analysis businesses in Japan and elsewhere.