WATCHMAKER DNA LIBRARY PREP KITS with TAPS+
The Power of Positive
Direct 5mC sequencing for multimodal insights
The Power of Positive
Direct 5mC sequencing
for multimodal insights
Traditional methyl-seq workflows convert unmethylated Cs to Ts, which effectively collapses sequence complexity from four bases (ATCG) to three (ATG), limiting utility to methylation analysis. Bisulfite treatment is also highly damaging to DNA, leading to sequence coverage gaps and sample type and mass compatibility limitations.
TAPS+ is a positive-readout chemistry that directly converts methylated Cs (5mCs) to Ts, and preserves unmethylated Cs. This maintains base complexity (ATCG) and delivers 5mC, SNV/indel, and CNV detection from a single library for multimodal analysis across discovery, translational, and population studies, as well as multi-cancer early detection and monitoring applications.
Key Features and Benefits
TAPS+ vs EM-Seq vs Bisulfite
| Criteria | TAPS+ | EM-Seq | Bisulfite |
|---|---|---|---|
| Methylation detection accuracy | |||
| Low false positives | |||
| Base diversity | |||
| Genomic variant detection | |||
| Non-damaging to DNA with high molecular recovery | |||
| Workflow simplicity and automatability | |||
| Reduced computational time and costs |
Applications
- →Methyl sequencing as an alternative to bisulfite conversion, including EPIC arrays
- →Whole-genome or targeted methylation sequencing
- →Simultaneous detection of methylation, SNV/Indels, and CNVs
- →Differential methylation analysis
- →Allele-specific methylation analysis
- →Multi-cancer early detection (MCED) assay development
- →Minimal residual disease (MRD) assay development
- →Tumor profiling, including FFPE
- →Liquid biopsy (cfDNA/ctDNA) studies
- →Fragmentomics
- →Aging studies
- →Population studies, including epigenome-wide association studies (EWAS)
- →Cancer research
- →Neurodegenerative research
- →Neuroscience and developmental biology
- →Biomarker discovery
- →Epigenotyping
Preserved base diversity for robust downstream analyses
Figure 1. Sequence a five-base genome. Only ~1–2% of bases in the human genome are cytosines in CpG context, which is where most methylation occurs. TAPS+ converts just those methylated CpG cytosines, leaving the remaining ~20% of cytosines unchanged. The result is a library that preserves native four-base complexity, more closely matches the human genome, and also delivers 5mC detection (the fifth base). This improves alignment and QC metrics, reduces the need for phiX spike-ins, and omits the need for costly methylated adapters. It also enables SNV/indel and CNV calling alongside methylation profiling from a single library.
Highly automatable, single-day workflow
Figure 2. Reduce turnaround time with an automatable workflow. The Watchmaker DNA Library Prep Kit with TAPS+ delivers libraries in under 6 hours with a workflow that smoothly translates to automated liquid handlers for high-throughput processing. The method does not require specialty consumables (like conversion columns often used in bisulfite workflows).
*Bisulfite Conversion = EZ DNA Methylation-Gold Kit (Zymo Research) and ssENA Library Prep = xGen Methyl-Seq Library Prep Kits (IDT)