Illumina Announces Nuerodegeneration Panel

By Bio-IT World Staff

July 14, 2017 Illumina has announced the TruSeq Neurodegeneration Panel, which targets 118 genes selected with input from a group of 16 leading neurodegenerative researchers and includes broad coverage of diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), and other neurodegenerative disorders. The panel identifies rare risk variants in both coding and noncoding regions of the targeted genes that are thought to be associated with neurodegenerative disorders, and offers a significant cost savings to researchers as compared with the more conventional method for studying noncoding regions of the human genome, whole genome sequencing.

“The majority of common risk variants associated with neurodegenerative diseases have been identified by genome-wide association study (GWAS). The remaining risk variants are likely to be rare, and their discovery requires screening of tens of thousands of samples,” said Andy Singleton, Chief of the Laboratory of Neurogenetics at the National Institutes of Health, in the Illumina news story announcing the product. “A targeted sequencing panel allows the systematic investigation of known disease genes and GWA-linked loci, including non-protein coding regulatory sequences, efficiently and cost-effectively. The sequencing panel also provides genetic information through fine mapping of GWA signals, identifying the functional risk allele(s), and detecting additional risk at the same locus.”

TruSeq Neurodegeneration Panel enables excellent identification of novel rare variants related to neurodegenerative diseases and investigation of common genetic pathways underlying multiple neurodegenerative diseases.  The streamlined workflow allows easy library preparation using Nextera Rapid Capture workflow, sequencing on Illumina instruments such as the NextSeq or HiSeq Systems, and data storage and analysis in BaseSpace Sequencing Hub, the Illumina cloud-based genomics computing environment.