Automated high throughput workflow developed for plant exome analysis

KeyGene has contributed to the development of an ultra-high throughput workflow for plant exome sequencing, in a collaborative project together with Twist Bioscience and Beckman Coulter Life Sciences.

The functional gene containing part of the lettuce genome, called the exome, was used to design and set up a workflow that can characterize plant exomes of more than 9,000 samples per day. Such a set-up significantly reduces the costs of detecting functional SNP variation.

High-tech

For the development of the ultra-high throughput workflow, Twist Bioscience produced the custom lettuce exome capturing probe set.
Beckman Coulter Life Sciences provided the Biomek i7 Dual hybrid workstation with the integrated Echo acoustic liquid handler for automated sample processing. The Echo liquid handler’s non-contact acoustic dispensing and nanoliter pipetting function were instrumental in miniaturising the assay to 1/5th of the original volume.

Cost reduction

KeyGene successfully benchmarked the optimized automated workflow, showing accurate mapping and SNP detection results that were highly comparable to those of the original manual procedure.

As a result, significant cost reduction can be achieved when implementing the new automated workflow.