Revio system from Pacific Biosciences

NGI-UGC intends to procure the high-throughput Revio sequencing system from Pacific Biosciences (PacBio),

with respective software and hardware

NGI-UGC intends to procure the high-throughput Revio sequencing system from Pacific Biosciences (PacBio),

with respective software and hardware

Förklaring:

Uppsala Genome Center (NGI-UGC) is a node of the National Genomics Infrastructure,

hosted by SciLifeLab. It is a sequencing production and research facility under the

jurisdiction of Uppsala University, Department of Immunology, Genetics and Pathology.

NGI-UGC is a non-profit, non-commercial supplier of long-read next generation sequencing

services with a primary responsibility towards Swedish academic and industry users, and, as

a secondary task, to such users world-wide. It is jointly financed by the Swedish Research

Council, SciLifeLab and Uppsala University.

NGI-UGC intends to procure the high-throughput Revio sequencing system from Pacific Biosciences of California, Inc, corporate ID number 16-1590339, 1305 O’Brien Drive, Menlo Park, California, 94025, USA ("Pac Bio"), with respective software and hardware to incorporate it into the existing machine park of long-read sequencing technologies. DNA sequencing of long molecules is currently enabled by two different technologies: PacBio SMRT and Oxford Nanopore Technologies (ONT).

Whereas the ONT instrument that NGI-UGC already has in its possession produce ultra-long

sequences by reading the DNA molecule once, the unique advantage of the Revio devices is

the accuracy of the generated sequences. To achieve these highly accurate reads, the DNA

molecule is read through several times generating a consensus sequence (HiFi read) with the

base quality of over Q30, currently not possible with the ONT instrument. This would be the

first Revio instrument in Sweden and possibly also in Europe.

The long and accurate HiFi sequences generated by the Revio system enables researchers to

study previously unresolved changes in genome architecture that are potentially causative of

a variety of diseases, e.g. several types of cancers. It also allows deciphering complex parts of

genomes, e.g. MHC and Ig – genome regions of high importance for organism immune

response, pre-disposition to type I diabetes, etc.

Besides human genetics, the long and accurate HiFi reads can dramatically improve the

quality of reference genome assemblies in non-model species, enabling research in

biodiversity, conservation, evolution, environmental monitoring, etc.

In the latter regard, several large, high-profile international consortia are being formed world-

wide, aiming to produce reference genomes for every branch of the Tree of Life (e.g. Earth

BioGenome Project, EBP). NGI-UGC is now a partner in the EBP Consortium which raises

the need to have a relevant equipment for large-scale production of long DNA sequences,

which are key to obtain references compliant to the EBP quality parameters. PacBio Revio

has a crucial role in this, due the ability to sequence long and accurate DNA molecules in a

massively parallel way.

Therefore, procurement of the Revio system will not only allow the UU-owned branch of

NGI to strengthen its position as a provider of long-read sequencing services to Swedish

researchers, but will also enable the Swedish academia to continue producing cutting-edge

research of international relevance.

On the circumstances above, it is decided to procure the PacBio Revio system by negotiated

procedure without prior advertising on the basis of technical reasons.

Contract value is estimated to be around 8,5 mkr.