Integrated DNA Technologies Advances Human Health and Clinical Research

Integrated DNA Technologies (IDT), the world leader in oligonucleotide synthesis, is extending its portfolio of NGS panels with the addition of the xGen® Inherited Disease and Pan-Cancer Panels. Adding these to the xGen AML Panel which was launched at the end of last year, IDT now offers a range of panels for deep sequencing that can be supplemented to cover a comprehensive range of diseases.

The xGen Inherited Disease Panel will be officially launched at the ACMG Annual Clinical Genetics Meeting, March 26–28. Designed in collaboration with Emory Genetics Laboratory (EGL), this panel was created to combine the ease of whole exome sequencing with the low cost of panels. Emory leveraged IDT Lockdown Probes to create a library targeting all exons in HGMD (human gene mutation database) listed genes. The creation of this library simplifies workflow and lowers costs, while facilitating rapid sequencing and providing the high coverage levels needed for clinical diagnostics application of NGS. During ACMG (EGL) will present a poster entitled, “One library, many tests: The evolution of next generation sequencing panel testing”.

The xGen Pan-Cancer Panel, which will be launched at AACR, April 5–9, is based on the findings of The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) network. NGS has enabled the discovery and characterization of gene-specific mutations that have the potential to be tumorigenic, but it also implicates irrelevant genes. A shortlist of significant genes that are relevant across numerous cancer types, which can be expanded by including additional tumor-specific genes, would be extremely valuable for both clinical and research applications. TGCA network have identified 127 significantly mutated genes across 12 tumor types. The Pan-Cancer Panel targets coding regions in all 127 genes.

Target enrichment enables users to focus their sequencing efforts on specific regions of the genome, providing a cost-effective and reliable alternative to whole genome sequencing, and making NGS more accessible. Ibrahim Jivanjee, Product Manager for NGS at IDT, commented, “Having launched our xGen AML Panel last October, we have invested a significant amount of time and resources into further developing our NGS capabilities. A rapidly advancing area, next generation sequencing is key to the development of personalized medicine, and these two new panels will aid us in supporting advancements in human health and clinical research.”

All three of the IDT NGS Panels feature xGen Lockdown® Probes, which are 120mer oligonucleotides with a 5’ biotin modification. Synthesized individually using the IDT Ultramer® synthesis platform, Lockdown Probes incorporate the highest coupling rate currently available, 99.6%, to provide high quality, long oligos. The quality of each capture probe is assessed using electrospray ionization mass spectrometry and even probes with a high GC content can be synthesized.