Research has long been a way of life on Oklahoma State University’s campus, but the new PacBio Vega long-read sequencer will create a world of scientific possibilities that researchers could only dream of before.

Possibilities that Dr. Samuel Jeyasingh, OSU Next Generation Sequencing Core Facility director, is excited about.

“This is the latest instrument that we have at OSU that can offer high-fidelity (HiFi) sequencing that can sequence any type of samples,” Jeyasingh said. “It might be human, animal, plant, microbes … any of it. We can process it.”

If DNA is a book, long-read sequencing allows researchers to read large sections at once rather than piecing together thousands of smaller fragments. According to Dr. Megan Justice, the facility's data scientist, those large sections make a significant difference.

“Long-read sequencing allows us to pull whole pages out of the book,” Justice said. “This takes a lot of guesswork out of understanding how the parts of the story go together.”

Before acquiring the Vega, OSU researchers lacked local access to high-quality, long-read sequencing, which meant they sometimes had to send samples elsewhere, adding time and expense. The missing capability limited the research that OSU scientists were equipped to pursue. Jeyasingh saw an opportunity to fill that gap using available funding through the Oklahoma Center for Microbiome Research.

He proposed purchasing the long-read sequencer, worked with PacBio representatives on the acquisition, and, after more than a year and a half of waiting for approval to use the funds from the National Institutes of Health, they were able to purchase the instrument.

OSU is now the only institution in Oklahoma that has the PacBio sequencing platform.

“Faculty members were sending samples to Canada or somewhere else where they can sequence those,” Jeyasingh said. “But now, by having this sequencer here, they can just drop off the samples and continue their work.”

The convenience doesn’t stop there. With this new technology, researchers can cover more DNA with less sequencing, saving time and money.

“In the case of organisms like bacteria that have very small genomes, we may even be able to sequence all of their DNA in one shot,” Justice said.

With the PacBio Vega now available at OSU, students and faculty have greater freedom to pursue research questions that may have been previously limited. Jeyasingh hopes researchers will take advantage of the opportunity and think ambitiously about what they want to achieve.

And, if answering those questions requires new technology, Jeyasingh encourages researchers to reach out. He wants their questions — not limitations — to determine what they pursue.

“If they don't find the technology resources to address their research questions … they should come talk to us and see how we can work together to bring those technologies here,” Jeyasingh said.

For Justice, the Vega’s arrival means OSU researchers can expand not only what they study, but also how involved they are in the process.

“Until recently, OSU researchers who wanted to do research involving long-read sequencing had to either form an academic collaboration with a researcher who had access to a long-read sequencer at an institution outside of Oklahoma,” Justice said. “Now, researchers will be able to conduct a wider array of experiments and be more involved with each step of the research process.”

As researchers begin exploring new questions with the Vega, Jeyasingh is interested to see where those questions lead and the impact their discoveries could have.

“I’m curious to know how this technology is addressing the gaps in the field, what people are doing intellectually and innovatively with these capabilities, and how this is making a difference in people’s lives,” Jeyasingh said. “That’s the bigger mission that most of the researchers are looking forward to.”

Story By: Rachel Teran | rachel.teran10@okstate.edu