All About The MiSeq

Like some over excited child talking about their favorite dinosaur or UNIX reference manual, in this post I’m going to tell you all about the MiSeq.

So here goes!

Did you know that the MiSeq still has the longest read lengths of any Illumina sequencer! And that Illumina demonstrated 678 bp error free reads on the MiSeq, waaaay back in 2012?

Did you know that Illumina probably only released the MiSeq because they were worried about increasing Ion Torrent sales?

Did you know that the MiSeq is probably Illumina’s most popular instrument? I’d estimate there are >10000 instruments in the field.

Did you know that it’s currently the oldest next-gen sequencer on the market? Having been released in 2011. 12 years ago!

This also makes the MiSeq the trad sequencer. It’s more or less a Solexa Genome Analyzer with some tweaks crammed into a tiny box.

It uses the same excitation wavelengths at the Genome Analyzer. But now supplied by LEDs rather than lasers. Look here they are, aren’t they neat!

The emission peaks are still at 532 and 660nm, just like the ~$10K lasers in the GA and HiSeq. But these LEDs are likely 10 times cheaper.