BillionToOne Developing Coronavirus Dx Test Based on Sanger Sequencing

Prenatal and cancer molecular diagnostics company BillionToOne has come up with an unconventional way that could dramatically increase the number of available coronavirus diagnostic tests: a quantitative Sanger sequencing assay that harnesses the large existing base of capillary electrophoresis instruments in clinical laboratories.

His company originally developed the patent-pending quantitative Sanger sequencing method for a noninvasive prenatal aneuploidy test, which the firm has not launched yet. Essentially, it relies on simultaneously PCR-amplifying and Sanger sequencing a target in a sample and a spike-in control. The sequence of the control is very similar to that of the target but has a frameshift, so the traces of the two sequences in the chromatogram initially overlap but are then offset by a few bases. From the difference in amplitude between the base peaks from the target and the spike-in control, an algorithm can calculate the amount of target in the sample.

Source: https://www.genomeweb.com/sequencing/billiontoone-developing-coronavirus-dx-test-based-sanger-sequencing