Infrastructure
AMG is hosting the national research infrastructure for high-throughput DNA sequencing, the Norwegian Consortium for Sequencing (NorSeq; Norseq4 and NSC - Sequencing (uio.no)). NorSeq is a national technology core facility offering sequencing services on the Illumina NovaSeq 6000, NextSeq 500 & MiSeq instruments from Illumina, and also the Sequel II and Revio from Pacific Biosciences. An Illumina NovaSeq X is under procurement. Both research and diagnostics have today their main production based on High Throughput sequencing (HTS).
All HTS instruments and instruments included in the sample preparation are tracked by the Clarity LIMS software (Illumina). DNA extraction and quality control are performed by two QiaSympony and two QiaExpert (both Qiagen), and a KingFisher (Thermo Fisher) installed by summer 2021 mainly with the purpose of RNA extraction. There are today eight Hamilton Star and six Biomek FX pipetting robots distributed between the pre- and post-PCR zones in the lab. Finally, there are about 100 PCR-instruments available as well as infrastructure for single cell sequencing (10X Genomics and MissionBio) and optical mapping (BioNano) which are located together with and used jointly by researchers and diagnostics at AMG.
The AMG node of NorSeq is the largest professional environment in Norway within high-throughput DNA Sequencing and has greatly facilitated the implementation of the technology in clinical diagnostics. Major projects in which NorSeq has contributed include collaboration with the cancer registry (small RNAs), metagenomic sequencing of feces in dogs, the Legacy of Nansen (marine organisms), SciLife Lab (Sweden) Darwin Tree of Life (UK) and the worldwide projects Vertebrate Genome Project and Earth BioGenome Project. Genome based sequencing and CNV analysis serve the clinical genetics laboratory.
Link to Norwegian Consortium for Sequencing, NorSeq:
Bioinformatics know-how including our in-house developed platform for clinical variant interpretation (ELLA; ELLA - clinical genetic interpretation tool (allel.es)) serves as a national resource. The high-capacity instrument NovaSeq 6000 and soon to come Nova Seq X (Illumina) means that we have an extreme capacity for whole genomes, transcriptomes and metagenomes.