Nov 12 2008
Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN) today unveiled a new product for DNA Analysis: the Infinium® HD Human660W-Quad BeadChip. This four-sample BeadChip features 2.6 million genetics markers and was developed in collaboration with The Centre for Applied Genomics at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Canada and the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in the United Kingdom. The Human660W-Quad BeadChip builds on the content from Illumina’s HumanHap550+ BeadChip to target over 5,000 regions in the human genome known to be associated with copy number variation (CNV). First customer shipments of the Human660W-Quad are expected in December 2008.
"When conducting whole-genome disease association studies, we want to ensure that we incorporate not only SNPs, but also coverage of common CNV regions in the genome. For that reason, we included 5,000 common CNV regions discovered as part of the Genome Structural Variation consortium on this array. Our goal is to identify those regions that may play a causative role in common diseases such as multiple sclerosis, schizophrenia, and asthma," said Matt Hurles, Ph.D., of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute.
The Human660W-Quad and Human1M-Duo BeadChips are being used by researchers for a new 90,000 sample initiative funded by the Wellcome Trust. This new series of genome-wide association studies is collectively the world's largest genetic research initiative to date, and is expected to uncover more than 120 billion points of genetic information.
“Recent studies confirm that copy number variation adds another layer of complexity to the human genome and can be directly correlated to the development of various human diseases. With the Human660W-Quad BeadChip we have the ability to link common structural variation with a diverse range of phenotypes,” says David van Heel, Ph.D., Professor of Gastrointestinal Genetics at Barts and The London School of Medicine. “We have published SNP associations in celiac disease using the HumanHap300 BeadChip and believe that the addition of known common CNV content to the Human660W-Quad BeadChip is a natural progression for our research needs. The multi-sample format of the array combined with a simple workflow will save us study time and allow us to rapidly publish our data.”
Infinium HD products dramatically increase sample throughput and reduce handling time in the lab, with industry-leading data quality that reduces errors and data mining tasks. Additionally, HD BeadChips require 70 percent less DNA input per sample.
“Recent studies confirm that copy number variation plays a vital role in the development of complex human diseases. The base content of the Human660W-Quad BeadChip has been successfully used in over 30 studies linking various SNPs to a wide range of diseases and phenotypes,” said Joel McComb, General Manager of Illumina’s Life Sciences Business Unit. “By collaborating with researchers at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute we expanded our High-Density product line to include a product that specifically helps researchers incorporate pre-selected common CNV regions into their association studies.”
Posted November12th, 2008