Jay Flatley’s announcement yesterday certainly changes calculations for whole genome sequencing. Newer, cheaper optics, fluidics and reagent chemistry have lowered the cost of sequencing and enabled a 300 cycle, 125 Gb run in 30 hours with the NextSeq 500. The HiSeq X Ten, (pronounced ex ten, not ten ten) consisting of 10 instruments daisy chained together, will generate 18 Tb in 72 hours. The new optical technology now utilizes a 2 dye system: adenine and cytosine bases are represented by one dye, an absence of dye for guanine bases and both dyes for thymine. This allows Illumina to ....
http://blog.genohub.com/nextseq-500-and-hiseq-x-ten-services-coming-soon-to-genohub-com/
The statement "Ten Illumina sequencers daisy chained together." really got me thinking. It reminds me of those ad-hoc "wiring solution" where one has a bunch of extension cords plugged into one another.
The HiSeq X Ten is also limited to human whole genome sequencing. I suspect that these limitations (10 at a time and WGS only) will be lifted in 2015.
I've read this elsewhere, but the NextSeq 500 looks very much like something to try to steal market share away from the IonTorrent.
The NextSeq 500 looks to compete with Proton and the HiSeq X Ten with Complete Genomics. Someone's impression on who will win: https://twitter.com/evolvability/status/423146185986019328
--Genohub