About PromethION
PromethION is a standalone benchtop instrument designed for high-throughput, high-sample-number analyses. Its modular design allows a new paradigm of versatile workflow where many different experiments may be run in real time, with no constraints of fixed run times. The same technology as the MinION portable DNA sequencer, it offers real-time, long-read, high-fidelity DNA and RNA sequencing.
A single PromethION contains docking for 48 flow cells. Each flow cell contains a nanopore sensor array enabling 3,000 nanopores, so a total of 144,000 on the instrument. Each flow cell also allows for multiple samples to be processed separately. Users may choose to use as many or as few of the flow cells as they like at any one time.
PromethION includes substantial on-board computing to enable very high throughput real-time analyses and requires no additional infrastructure.
Why PromethION?
PromethION workflow
PromethION workflows are designed for simplicity and versatility.
Library preparation is the same as MinION: the 1D library preparation takes <10 minutes.
With real-time data and a modular design there is no requirement for batching samples. The user may deploy as many of the 48 flow cells as they wish at any time to allow for scalable analyses.
Within each flow cell, multiple samples may be run separately or the same sample may be run across multiple flow cells for a faster time-to-result.
With real-time analyses, the system needs to be run only for as long as it takes to gather sufficient data to answer the biological question. PromethION is compatible with common liquid-handling formats making the PromethION suitable for large-scale library preparation.
To start using PromethION, join the PromethION Early Access Programme
PromethION system overview
The PromethION is a desktop device designed for high-throughput, high-sample-number analysis of biological molecules such as DNA and RNA. It includes two modules:
Sequencing module
- 48 individually addressable flow cells
- Each flow cell uses a new 3K ASIC, offering a total of up to 144,000 channels
- Uses same chemistry as MinION
Compute module
- Local cluster of high-performance compute
- Real-time data-analysis in the box
- Web-based administration
Specifications
- Specifications for PromethION and MinION can be found here
Modular system
Flow cells can be run independently or as a group
- Designed for between 1 and 192 samples
- 48 individual sensor chips
- 4 sample inputs per chip
- 3,000 active channels per chip
- Up to 144,000 simultaneous channels
Sample application
Ligation or Transposome kits will be available
- <100ng should be sufficient for:
- One flow cell, 4 reloads (over 48 Hr run)
- Two flow cells, 2 reloads (over 48 Hr run)
- Four flow cells, no reloads (over 48 Hr run)
- Sample loading with multichannel pipette
Data architecture
Read data available and processed in real time.
PromethION compute module
Initial specifications
- 12x quad-core i7 slave nodes plus one i7 management node
- 12x 2 TB SSD data buffer storage
- "Slurm” job-scheduling cluster
- Web-based administration and operation interface
- 2x 10 GBit fibre uplinks
- 2x 1 GBit ethernet management ports
- [1x 1 GBit ethernet developer port (debugging)]
- Runs Ubuntu 14.04 LTS internally [possibly 16.04 LTS later this year]
- Will mount CIFS or NFS external storage, [possibly others]
