Real-time selective sequencing on the MinION

The MinION replaces the conventional model of "sequence followed by analysis to final result" with instant access to data before the completion of a sequencing run. This instant access extends to the analysis of sequence "squiggle" data even before a read has finished traversing the nanopore. We have developed a suite of tools, minoTour, to analyse MinION data in real time and extended them to exploit both ‘Run Until’ and, soon, ‘Read Until’. "Run until" allows the sequencer to switch off after achieving a specific goal, such as depth of coverage. "Read Until" allows individual reads to be rejected from the pore and free that pore to sequence an alternative preferred read. We have developed methods for "Run Until" and "Read Until" in a number of different scenarios including selective small genome sequencing, barcode normalisation and amplicon sequencing. Although read until implementations are limited by compute resource and the ever increasing speed of sequencing, potential applications are increased by enabling the sequencing of regions of DNA from a background pool.