Pacific Biosciences patents method for single molecule sequencing of concatemers

Pacific Biosciences of California has patented its methods for single molecule sequencing of concatemers having complementary sense and antisense regions of a nucleic acid sample, including such concatemers generated from a rolling circle amplification reaction.

Pacific said that the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) issued the patent called “Sequencing using concatemers of copies of sense and antisense strands on March 6, 2018.

The methods of the patent represent another approach for getting higher accuracy in single molecule sequencing processes, including those performed using a nanopore sensor, and are related to Pacific Biosciences’ Circular Consensus Sequencing (CCS) approach for generating high intra-molecular consensus, the company said on Friday in a press release announcing the patent.

Dr. Robert Reamey, Vice President of Intellectual Property at Pacific Biosciences, said that with 274 issued U.S. patents and 188 granted foreign patents owned or exclusively licensed by Pacific Biosciences to date, including 92 U.S. and foreign patents that have issued over the past year, the issuance of this patent further strengthens the company’s extensive patent portfolio in the field of single molecule, long-read sequencing, which includes SMRT Sequencing as well as various nanopore approaches.

Dr. Michael W. Hunkapiller, Chief Executive Officer of Pacific Biosciences said that the company’s CCS sequencing mode, which can achieve very high consensus accuracy on individual molecules, is exclusively available on PacBio sequencing platforms such as the Sequel System. He noted that it is useful for characterizing complex populations of closely related DNA molecules within a sample, such as those found in viral populations, microbial communities, and somatic variants in cancer, with single molecule resolution. “As a pioneer in the field, we have also developed (and been successful in obtaining patent protection for) single molecule sequencing approaches that go beyond our current systems. That being said, even where others have attempted to combine our innovations with a competitor’s product, systematic errors have tended to limit them from reaching the level of accuracy that can be achieved using PacBio systems,” Dr. Hunkapiller said.