Illumina Now Shipping HumanHap300 BeadChips for Genome-Wide Disease Association Studies
Tuesday January 10, 6:00 am ET
Infinium(TM) Assay Sets New Standard for Performance and Data Quality
SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 10, 2006--Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ: ILMN - News) announced today that it has begun commercial shipment of the new Sentrix® HumanHap300 Genotyping BeadChip to customers around the world. Enabled by the Company's revolutionary Infinium(TM) assay method (see Note), each BeadChip analyzes over 317,000 high-value SNP loci per sample. Content is derived principally from so-called "tagSNPs" identified and validated in the International HapMap Project, which was completed in October 2005. The new BeadChip offers the most comprehensive genomic coverage and highest data quality of any product currently available and is expected to become an important discovery tool for researchers seeking to understand the genetic basis of common, yet complex diseases.
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TagSNPs deliver high statistical value to geneticists because they serve as "proxies" for larger groups of SNPs, called haplotypes, which are inherited together. Researchers can analyze human populations comprehensively and efficiently by examining between 250,000 and 500,000 tagSNPs instead of the entire set of roughly 10 million SNPs - opening doors to genome-wide disease association studies now in progress. The Sentrix HumanHap300 is the only whole-genome genotyping array with tagSNP-centric content.
The Sentrix HumanHap300 BeadChip and Infinium assay have undergone testing at leading research centers in both North America and Europe. The Max Planck Institute (MPI) of Psychiatry in Munich, Germany has evaluated the new product offering for use in the second phase of a large-scale study designed to identify genetic variants associated with depression and anxiety. According to Thomas Bettecken, M.D., Head of MPI's Center for Applied GenoTyping (CAGT), "We have observed quite remarkable data quality using manual processing methods and without taking advantage of options for automated sample preparation and labeling. To date, we have achieved average per-sample call rates that exceed 99.5%, with reproducibility and Mendelian inheritance factors both over 99.9%. These compelling metrics allow us to generate high-confidence results with fewer samples, less effort and time, and lower costs than alternative approaches."
"We've evaluated the HumanHap300 BeadChip prior to using the product for a large-scale pilot association study," stated Kimberly Doheny, Ph.D., Director of the Genotyping Laboratory at the Center for Inherited Disease Research (CIDR), a centralized genotyping services facility supported through a federally funded contract to Johns Hopkins University. "The new BeadChip and Infinium assay workflows integrate readily into our BeadLab environment," Doheny added. "The streamlined assay protocol is robust and easy to perform, without the need for multiple sample transfer steps that increase the risk of errors. We value the ability to generate high-quality results using a product that includes fully supported automation protocols and quality-controlled reagents."
The new Sentrix BeadChip is part of a growing genotyping portfolio from Illumina that includes whole-genome arrays, focused-content arrays and SNP panels, and powerful assay protocols such as the GoldenGate® and Infinium assays. The HumanHap300 complements Illumina's exon-centric Human-1 BeadChip that can query over 109,000 SNP loci, 70% of which reside in or near genes.
"The HumanHap300 is the industry's first whole-genome microarray product with content derived purely from the HapMap Project," stated Jay Flatley, Illumina President and CEO. "Coupled with our Infinium assay, the HumanHap300 provides the most comprehensive genomic coverage of any product on the market while using far fewer markers than those used in competing approaches." "Our growing line of whole-genome genotyping products has set a new standard for performance and quality in this explosive market," Flatley concluded.
For more information about the HumanHap300 BeadChip, visit: illumina.com .
About Illumina
Illumina (www.illumina.com) develops and markets next-generation tools for the large-scale analysis of genetic variation and function. The Company's proprietary BeadArray technology -- used in leading genomics centers around the world -- provides the throughput, cost effectiveness and flexibility necessary to enable researchers in the life sciences and pharmaceutical industries to perform the billions of tests necessary to extract medically valuable information from advances in genomics and proteomics. This information will help pave the way to personalized medicine by correlating genetic variation and gene function with particular disease states, enhancing drug discovery, allowing diseases to be detected earlier and more specifically, and permitting better choices of drugs for individual patients.
"Safe Harbor" Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: this release may contain forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Among the important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in any forward-looking statements are the costs and outcome of Illumina's litigation with Affymetrix, the Company's ability to scale and integrate CyVera technology, the ability to further scale oligo synthesis output and technology to satisfy market demand deriving from the Company's collaboration with Invitrogen, Illumina's ability to further develop and commercialize its BeadArray technologies and to deploy new gene expression and genotyping products and applications for its platform technology, to manufacture robust Sentrix® arrays - including HumanHap BeadChips -- and Oligator® oligonucleotides, and other factors detailed in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission including its recent filings on Forms 10-K and 10-Q or in information disclosed in public conference calls, the date and time of which are released beforehand. Illumina disclaims any intent or obligation to update these forward-looking statements beyond the date of this release.
Infinium Assay Note
The Infinium Assay is notable for its simplicity, its high locus specificity and allelic discrimination, and its ability to interrogate a broad range of SNPs with little constraint on locus selection. This, in turn, enables scalability limited only by the number of features on the array itself (the HumanHap300 BeadChip contains over 11 million features). Following single-tube, whole-genome amplification (no PCR or ligation steps), samples are hybridized to 50-mer bead-based probes. After a labeled extension step, the BeadChip is imaged on Illumina's BeadArray Reader, and then analyzed.
Additional Assay Reference
Whole-Genome Genotyping with the Single-Base Extension Assay, Frank J. Steemers, Weihua Chang, Grace Lee, David Barker, Richard Shen and Kevin Gunderson, Nature Methods, Vol. 3, No. 1, January 2006. |
