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Chapter 1: Xdrop™ at a Glance
Targeted enrichment overview
Congratulations with your new Xdrop™ instrument, which we expect will facilitate groundbreaking research.
The Xdrop™ technology introduces a new approach for genomic analysis as the technology enables targeted
enrichment of genomic regions in droplets. The Xdrop™ technology offers sensitive and unbiased PCR-free sample
enrichment and general amplification prior to downstream analysis e.g. next generation sequencing.
Using the Xdrop™ instrument, cartridges, and reagents, sample DNA is partitioned into millions of picolitre size highly
stable droplets. The Xdrop™ droplet PCR (dPCR) droplets are suitable for standard PCR cycling, flow cytometry analysis
and sorting.
In the first step of enrichment, the sample is diluted and partitioned into millions of double emulsion droplets using the
Xdrop™ instrument and the advanced microfluidics dPCR cartridge. Droplets containing the target DNA molecules are
identified by a 120-160 base pair targeted PCR specific to a sequence within or adjacent to the region of interest.
Positive droplets are identified by their fluorescence and physically separated from negative droplets by use of a
standard cell sorter. The result is an enrichment of long single molecules comprising tens of kilobases of DNA
information.
For downstream universal amplification of the single molecules, Samplix has developed a proprietary technology by
which the high molecular weight DNA molecules are partitioned into thousands of droplets for high fidelity multiple
displacement amplification in droplets (dMDA).
The Xdrop™ enrichment and amplification technology are compatible with downstream molecular biology techniques
such as short and long read DNA sequencing.