Next Generation Sequencing

Next Generation Sequencing

Want to know what is in your food? Next generation sequencing (NGS) may be right for you. Rather than a targeted approach seen with qPCR testing, NGS is untargeted; if the sequence can be found in the database we can identify it. We offer NGS for animal, fish, produce (plant), fungal and bacterial speciation; that’s >25,000 species!

NGS is useful for;

• Composite products (ie. quiche, soups, ready meals, pâté, salami, filled pasta)
• Comminuted foods (mince, fish cakes)
• Specialist foods (herbs, dried mushrooms etc)
• Complaint investigations

A cost effective analytical tool, more versatile than “7 species screens” providing the ability to test for multiple areas simultaneously.

NGS is not useful for;

• Detection of dilution with non-DNA containing material (ie chalk or salt)
• Assessment of quality (ie dilution of spices with spent material)
• Understanding the viability of microbes detected (it detects the DNA not if it is live)
• Products where DNA has been destroyed

As with qPCR, NGS can only ever be semi-quantitative.

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