Roche Nimblegen and Biogemma to Develop Sequence Capture Technology for High-Throughput Sequencing of Crop Genomes

Roche NimbleGen and Biogemma entered into a research agreement which will apply Roche NimbleGen’s array-based Sequence Capture complexity reduction technology to provide targeted re-sequencing of crop plant genomes.

The goal of this partnership is to develop new technologies that enable large-scale genomic marker discovery in plants, which will facilitate marker-assisted breeding programs to select the crops with desirable traits that will benefit human lives.

The collaboration will target highly polyploidy plant genomes including wheat and rapeseed (canola). These large polyploid genomes, necessitate complexity reduction for single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) discovery to target or capture the unique DNA sequences associated with genes of high utility to crop breeders from the majority of insignificant, repetitive DNA sequences present in the genome.

Biogemma plans to power their proprietary sequences with NimbleGen technology to accelerate discoveries for the molecular breeding programs of their shareholders. This co-development leverages recent optimizations of Roche NimbleGen’s core Sequence Capture technology for the Genome Sequencer FLX Titanium series sequencing platform from 454 Life Sciences.

According to Gerd Maass, CEO of Roche NimbleGen, “Roche NimbleGen is extremely pleased to partner with Biogemma on the application of Sequence Capture, a revolutionary technology that can target only the DNA sequences of interest to reduce time and cost. This collaboration will expand the understanding of plant genome structure and aid in the research and development of advanced agricultural species to improve food safety, increase productivity, and help improve the quality of life worldwide.”