Long Read Sequencing Facility

The Long Read Sequencing Facility was established in 2019 and it’s a collaboration between Department of Neuromuscular Diseases, UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology and UK Dementia Research Institute at UCL.

Contact us

UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology,
3rd Floor Queen Square House,
London WC1N 3BG

lrs@ucl.ac.uk

Team

Our staff are experienced, professional, and dedicated. We are prepared to discuss your project and help you in any way we can!

Equipment

Oxford Nanopore Technology: PromethION

PromethION is a scalable long-read sequencing platform from Oxford Nanopore Technologies using nanopore sequencing with real-time base calling. Up to 24 flow cells can be run independently, and dependent on the sample and library types a single flow cell can generate up to 200Gb of data. Nanopore technology has no limitation on read length, so libraries can be designed to have short or ultra long read lenghts. Uniquely, Nanopore technology can be used to enrich for target regions without PCR or probes. The data generated can also be used for methylation basecalling and epigenomic studies. For more information on the PromethION, follow this link to the Oxford Nanopore website: https://nanoporetech.com/products/promethion

Pacific Biosystems: Revio

The new Revio system from PacBio is an optimised system with increased compute power and ability to run 4 flow cells simultaneously over 24 hours. This and the new 25M SMRTcells utilised by Revio provide higher compute and yields, outcompeting the Sequel IIe. For more information on the Revio, follow this link to the PacBio website: https://www.pacb.com/revio/

Bionano Saphyr

An optical genome mapping system that uses fluorescently labelled genome regions to map the genome from isolated HMW DNA samples. For more information on the Bionano Saphyr, follow this link to the Bionano website: https://bionano.com/saphyr-systems/

Applied Biosystems 3730XL

Provides high throughput, scalable, capillary electrophoresis and sanger sequencing technology for genetic analysis.

The 3730xl DNA Analyzer provides high-quality data from a wide array of applications. In addition to being ideal for high-throughput sequencing, the analyzer's optimized application assays, instrument, and analysis software also provide a complete solution for genotyping and resequencing. Use this analyzer for DNA fragment analysis applications such as microsatellites, AFLP, and SNP analysis, mutation detection, and traditional DNA sequencing. For more information on the AB3730XL, follow this link to the Thermo Fisher website: https://www.thermofisher.com/order/catalog/product/A41046

Agilent Femto Pulse

A high throughput pulse-field gel electrophoresis system. It can accurately size and judge the quality of our DNA and RNA samples. The system is particularly good for long-read samples due to its ability to separate high molecular weight DNA. For more information on Femto Pulse, please follow this link to the Agilent website: https://www.agilent.com/en/product/automated-electrophoresis/femto-pulse-systems/femto-pulse-system/femto-pulse-system-365750

Megaruptor 3

The Megaruptor 3 (MR3) system from Diagenode provides accurate and reproducible DNA fragmentation. Some long-read projects benefit from initial DNA fragmentation in order to optimise downstream library sequencing. For more information on the Megaruptor 3, please follow this link to the Diagenode website: https://www.diagenode.com/en/p/megaruptor-3