Agrotechnology

How far can we go with automation in metagenomic sequencing?

7^th Global Summit on Agriculture & Horticulture

October 17-19, 2016 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Caroline Janitz

Western Sydney University, Australia

Posters & Accepted Abstracts: Agrotechnol

Abstract:

Applying next-generation sequencing (NGS) to metagenomic research has revolutionized this field of genomics. Thanks to NGS, many technical bottlenecks, such as cloning and microbial culturing of environmental samples, became obsolete, which contributed to significant acceleration in microbial diversity exploration. Metagenomic studies usually require simultaneous analysis of a large number of environmental samples; however, they have a very limited amount of available starting material. To address these challenges, we developed a methodological approach that allows for a fully automated workflow process, which can accommodate up to 384 samples in a single MiSeq run. This improvement was developed based on the Eppendorf liquid handling system. Utilization of this increased processing capacity in our NGS facility at Western Sydney University resulted in a number of additional advantages as compared to the existing pipeline including: a 40% reduction of the sample processing cost, a hands-off approach, which guarantees highly reproducible results, a shortened sample turnaround, with 384 samples processed within only nine days, e.g. up to 8,000 samples can be processed annually and a significant reduction in the original sample input amount.

Biography :

Email: c.janitz@westernsydney.edu.au