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Updated: Apr 18, 2026
Targeted Next-generation Sequencing and Bioinformatics Pipeline to Evaluate Genetic Determinants of Constitutional Disease
Published on: April 4, 2018
Clinical validation of targeted next-generation sequencing for inherited disorders
Sophia Yohe1, Adam Hauge, Kari Bunjer
1From the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis (Drs Yohe, Wilson, Zhou, Spears, and Thyagarajan); the University of Minnesota Genomics Center (Mr Hauge, Mss Bunjer and Deshpande, and Dr Beckman); the Molecular Diagnostics Laboratory, Fairview-University of Minnesota Medical Center (Ms Kemmer and Messrs Bower and Schomaker); the Division of Genetics and Metabolism, University of Minnesota (Mr Bower); and the Minnesota Supercomputing Institute, University of Minnesota (Drs Onsongo and Silverstein and Mr Erdmann).
Context:
Although next-generation sequencing (NGS) can revolutionize molecular diagnostics, several hurdles remain in the implementation of this technology in clinical laboratories.
Objectives:
To validate and implement an NGS panel for genetic diagnosis of more than 100 inherited diseases, such as neurologic conditions, congenital hearing loss and eye disorders, developmental disorders, nonmalignant diseases treated by hematopoietic cell transplantation, familial cancers, connective tissue disorders, metabolic disorders, disorders of sexual development, and cardiac disorders. The diagnostic gene panels ranged from 1 to 54 genes with most of panels containing 10 genes or fewer.
Design:
We used a liquid hybridization-based, target-enrichment strategy to enrich 10 067 exons in 568 genes, followed by NGS with a HiSeq 2000 sequencing system (Illumina, San Diego, California).
Results:
We successfully sequenced 97.6% (9825 of 10 067) of the targeted exons to obtain a minimum coverage of 20× at all bases. We demonstrated 100% concordance in detecting 19 pathogenic single-nucleotide variations and 11 pathogenic insertion-deletion mutations ranging in size from 1 to 18 base pairs across 18 samples that were previously characterized by Sanger sequencing. Using 4 pairs of blinded, duplicate samples, we demonstrated a high degree of concordance (>99%) among the blinded, duplicate pairs.
Conclusions:
We have successfully demonstrated the feasibility of using the NGS platform to multiplex genetic tests for several rare diseases and the use of cloud computing for bioinformatics analysis as a relatively low-cost solution for implementing NGS in clinical laboratories.
