Biogazelle Uses Bio-Rad’s PrimePCR™ Assays to Create qPCR Reference Data for FDA-Led Sequencing Project

Biogazelle, a qPCR and RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) data analysis and services company, recently used Bio-Rad Laboratories’ PrimePCR Real-Time PCR Assays in a global analysis of next-generation sequencing (NGS) reproducibility that was published in Nature Biotechnology.

This FDA-led Sequencing Quality Control (SEQC) study compared RNA-seq data generated using different NGS platforms to benchmark their performance. The authors compared different NGS platforms and how they performed on well-characterized RNA samples. They also compared those data to microarray and qPCR data.

Biogazelle used almost 21,000 PrimePCR Assays to assess the expression levels of protein-coding genes in four samples from MAQC-I, a previous FDA-led study to compare different microarray technologies. In total, Biogazelle performed more than 80,000 qPCR reactions. These reference data matched well with RNA-seq results.

“Our motivation to participate in the SEQC study was to add a valuable reference for evaluating the results generated by RNA sequencing,” said Jan Hellemans, CEO and cofounder of Biogazelle. “Bio-Rad’s human PrimePCR Assays are fully wet-lab validated, making them ideally suited for benchmarking.”

Bio-Rad and Biogazelle partnered to develop PrimePCR Assays in 2012, seeking to achieve a level of validation that goes beyond industry standards and common research practices. The raw validation data that come with each assay ensure studies are predictable and controlled. Researchers can also use PrimePCR Assays to follow qPCR best practices known as MIQE (minimum information for publication of quantitative real-time PCR experiments).