Beckman Coulter Genomics Introduces a Scalable RNA-seq service line for processing intact and degraded RNA samples

Beckman Coulter Genomics, provider of expert sequencing solutions for research and healthcare institutions worldwide, has added stranded, ribodepletion and globin reduction library construction options to their existing RNA-Seq services. The Illumina* TruSeq Stranded Total RNA Sample Prep Kit has been automated on Beckman Coulter instruments to enable scalability and LIMS sample tracking. This expanded offering has been validated at Beckman Coulter Genomics for human, mouse, rat and plant samples. In addition it includes the ability to work with samples derived from blood and FFPE.

This fully automated sample preparation pipeline delivers consistent results run after run, reducing user variability and bias and allows processing of a large amount of samples with reduced turnaround time relative to manual library construction.

This technology provides a robust and highly scalable end-to-end solution for whole transcriptome analysis that is accurate, sensitive and integrated with Illumina sequencing platforms, said Tim Anderson, vice president and general manager of genomic services.

Providing the clearest, most complete view of the transcriptome, there is a high level of confidence in the discovery of alternative transcripts, antisense expression, and allele-specific expression.

“This new Stranded RNA Sequencing pipeline delivers a more comprehensive transcriptome analysis including the ability to resolve overlapping genes and the identification of ncRNA and antisense transcripts,” said John Battles, senior manager, bioinformatics and study management at Beckman Coulter Genomics. “We are excited by this new addition to our already robust bioinformatics analysis DNASeq and RNASeq pipelines.”

This expanded offering is suited for genome annotation, de novo transcriptome assembly, and accurate digital gene expression analysis thus providing uniform coverage and precise measurement of strand orientation, and discovery across both coding and multiple forms of non-coding RNA.