Twist Bioscience Corporation (NASDAQ: TWST), a leading provider of synthetic DNA via its silicon platform, announced the launch of a suite of RNA sequencing tools today. The new portfolio, including the Twist RNA Exome, Twist RNA Library Prep Kit, and the Ribosomal Twist RNA (rRNA) & Hemoglobin (Globin) Depletion Kit, expands the company’s capabilities to cover RNA and whole transcriptome sequencing.
Emily M. Leproust, Ph.D., CEO and co-founder of Twist Bioscience, said, “This offering allows our customers to leverage Twist’s leading target enrichment platform to discover and resolve low abundance RNA transcripts in the human transcriptome. In addition, our RNA sequencing workflows are designed specifically for challenging samples.”
Unlike the static genome, the transcriptome dynamically changes over time in response to disease states and drug therapies. Gene expression levels also differ across tissues and cell types. As a result, researchers often sequence RNA samples from the same source multiple times to understand this dynamic quality. Twist’s new RNA sequencing tools aim to improve the data quality, reduce workflow inefficiency, decrease wasted sequencing reads, and support comprehensive transcriptomic profiling even across low-quality and low-input samples, such as those familiar in oncology.
The new RNA sequencing portfolio provides end-to-end workflows to study total RNA and measure the whole transcriptome, messenger RNA (mRNA) protein-coding sequences, or custom targets. These tools can integrate into customers’ existing workflows and are compatible with various sample inputs, including challenging or low-quality samples. Additionally, Twist’s new exon-aware design algorithm incorporated into RNA panel designs reduces detection bias and can be critical for researchers studying rare gene transcripts in tumor biology.
Twist’s targeted RNA sequencing workflow uses Twist target enrichment’s performance, efficiency, and sensitivity for sequencing RNA transcripts of interest across samples and species. This workflow can enrich relevant transcripts with the RNA Exome or custom RNA panels.
The Twist RNA Exome with Twist’s exon-aware design algorithm facilitates targeted sequencing of the protein-coding regions of the human transcriptome without bias towards specific exon combinations. It covers up to 99.9% of protein-coding sequencing in Gencode and RefSeq databases, which, coupled with the exon-aware design approach, can enable researchers to capture significant transcripts from low input and degraded samples such as formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) sections.
Twist’s Whole Transcriptome Sequencing can discover novel transcripts, including low-expressing genes and novel isoforms. It is compatible with various samples, including whole blood, fresh and frozen tissue samples, and low-quality samples, such as FFPE samples. The Twist rRNA & Globin Depletion Kit, part of this workflow, help researchers focus on the rest of the transcriptome by depleting rRNA and hemoglobin targets. The workflow can be completed in under five hours, requiring minimal hands-on time.
1 Comment