PromethION in the wild: high yield data announcements in human and plant DNA

A single MinION flow cell, able to run up to 512 channels at one time, can now produce more than 10-20Gb of DNA sequence data, and is being used in a variety of applications – browse our resource centre for examples.

GridION, launched in 2017, is now providing an easy way of running up to five of the same flow cells. It is now being used to generate larger datasets, or indeed to sequence multiple samples on a single device.

PromethION is Oxford Nanopore’s largest device. It offers up to 48 flow cells, each of which can be run separately or concurrently, on-demand. Each flow cell can run up to 3,000 channels at one time. PromethION is designed to offer the real-time, long read, direct sequencing characteristics of nanopore, except at a scale to compete with the largest traditional devices on the market.

Oxford Nanopore set a target of 50Gb of DNA sequence data per single Flow Cell in order to release early access supplies. This was achieved internally in late 2017, and in the following weeks internal results have reached more than 150Gb – the equivalent of more than 7Tb if achieved across all 48 PromethION Flow Cells.

Now, early participants of PEAP – the PromethION Early Access Programme – are reporting metrics from their experiments. KeyGene has today reported setting a a new record in nanopore sequencing. And, VIB this week announced that they had run a human genome on a single PromethION Flow Cell, achieving 63Gb of human data. They swiftly broke their own record with an 85Gb result.

All Oxford Nanopore devices are available without a capital commitment, with consumables being priced according to the volume committed to. PromethION Flow Cells are priced between $625 and $2,000 depending on the bundle, demonstrating the pathway to the sub-$1,000, nanopore-only human genome described in Clive Brown’s February webcast If you are interested in using nanopore technology at scale and on-demand, whether for large samples or multiple small samples, please review our GridION and PromethION pages, or get in touch.