Illumina Produced Read Length

Question

[Arpssss]

I am comparing BowTie vs BWA for various read lengths. Now, before one year ago Illumina produced read lengths are typically 36, 75 or 100 bps which they have increased now a days. Can anybody provide me information about, what is the typical read lengths that Illumina is producing now a days.

Answer 1

[matted]

If you google "Illumina read length," the first hit will be this page which describes read lengths up to 100-bp (per end) on current systems and 150-bp on speculative future systems.

This is a manufacturer recommendation, and as you can see from the discussion in the other thread you started on this topic, it's possible to exceed that by changing the machine's configuration. However, there are limits on the read length imposed by two sources:

1. Accumulating error that makes later basecalls more and more error-prone (and therefore useless)
2. Hard limits on the volume of sequencing reagents that can fit into the machine as currently designed. Maybe someone could try to pause the run and reload various reagents, but this is tricky and maybe futile due to the first concern.

Edit: it looks like MiSeq machines can run for longer (speculation: due to easier fixes to the second problem by having a smaller flowcell). There is a bit of public data from Illumina giving 2x250bp reads and a number of Miseq runs in the SRA that you could look at.

Answer 2

[bioinfo]

3 months ago I sequenced my bacteria on Illumina GAIIx platform, it generated 101 bp reads.