Madison, Wis. — Earlier this week, Epicentre Biotechnologies announced the availability of Nextera kits for preparation of Illumina-compatible sequencing libraries. The kits enable libraries to be prepared from as little as 50 ng of DNA in under 2 hours. Last month, Epicentre launched the Nextera product line with kits designed for Roche 454 GS FLX and Titanium sequencers.

The kits use Epicentre’s patented transposon-based technology to randomly fragment the template DNA and tag the ends in a single-tube reaction. “It’s ground-breaking technology for people used to the standard, ligation-based library procedures that begin with nebulization, sonication, or other mechanical shearing methods,” said Dr. Nick Caruccio, Epicentre’s Director of Market Development. “The kits greatly reduce the amount of hands-on time required, waste very little sample, and enable much higher throughput. The response from early adopters of the technology has been very positive.” Conventional sample prep methods require microgram amounts of starting material to prepare a sequencer-ready library due to their low efficiency.

More information can be obtained on Epicentre’s website at: www.EpiBio.com/nextera

Epicentre Biotechnologies manufactures and sells innovative enzyme-based kits for genomics and transcriptomics research. The company is based in Madison, Wis. and maintains an international presence through a network of over 50 distributors. For more information, see: www.EpiBio.com