Maryland Patent of the Month – March 2023
In the world of molecular diagnostics, there has always been a need for efficient and cost-effective methods of identifying, amplifying, and analyzing multiple nucleic acid targets within a sample. The current methods have their limitations, especially in the context of highly polymorphic sequences. But what if there was a new and useful method that could overcome these limitations? That’s where Psomagen Inc comes in.
Psomagen Inc, a leading genomics and bioinformatics company, has pioneered a CRISPR-based library preparation and sequencing method that is highly efficient and cost-effective. This method involves generating guide RNA (gRNA) complexes comprising proteins and gRNAs of a set of targets corresponding to a set of taxa associated with a microorganism-related condition.
The gRNA complexes comprise endonucleases for generating microorganism nucleic acid fragments comprising a set of blunt end regions associated with the set of targets. The microorganism nucleic acid material is then processed with the gRNA complexes to generate end regions associated with the set of targets. The end regions are then ligated with a set of adapters sharing the same adapter sequence, and an amplified set of targets is obtained by simultaneously amplifying the set of targets based on the ligated end regions and a set of primers sharing the same primer sequence in order to facilitate reduced amplification bias.
The sequenced set of targets obtained from this method can be used to generate a microbiome composition diversity dataset and a microbiome functional diversity dataset. This method can also be used to treat a microorganism-related condition by generating a user microbiome dataset based on user-associated gRNA complexes sharing sequences with the proteins and the gRNAs, user-associated adapters sharing the adapter sequence, and user-associated primers sharing the primer sequence. A characterization model for the microorganism-related condition is then created by transforming the supplementary dataset and features extracted from the microbiome datasets. A therapy is then provided to the user based on the microbiome-associated characterization and a therapy model, which modulates user microbiome composition to improve the state of the microorganism-related condition.
Psomagen’s CRISPR-based library preparation and sequencing method effectively reduces amplification biases and primer interference effects. WIth improved efficiencies, the technology can leverage specialized sample processing devices and can build up a full gRNA-associated database.
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