Deadly E. Coli Strain Sequenced With Roche GS Junior System by HPA Scientists - Provides Community Most Complete Assembly to Date

BRANFORD, Connecticut, June 15, 2011 -

The deadly E. coli O104 strain that has killed dozens and
hospitalized thousands across Europe has been sequenced using 454
Life Sciences’ benchtop GS Junior sequencing system to generate the
“most accurate and detailed genetic analysis to date” of this
particularly virulent strain.^[1]
The sequencing was performed by scientists at the UK’s Health
Protection Agency and the data has been uploaded onto the National
Centre for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) website for use by the
scientific community.^[2]

The results suggest that the strain has a unique combination of
features containing genes from two different types of E.
coli as well as its own genes. The sequencing assembly shows
that the strain contains two extrachromosomal elements or plasmids
which may factor into its pathogenicity. In essence, this strain of
E. coli may have ‘picked up’ some extra genetic material
along the way.

“Despite the availability of short read sequencing data from
this E. coli outbreak strain for over a week, the short
fragmented assembly has offered only limited information on gene
order and gene composition,” said Chinnappa Kodira, Director of
Genomics at 454 Life Sciences. “This long contiguous assembly
enables much better characterization of genome structure,
horizontal gene transfer and pathogenic islands which are crucial
for understanding the emergence of new virulent bacterial strains.”
The addition of this new long read sequence data from the GS Junior
System offers the community the most contiguous sequence to date,
and provides a comprehensive assembly on which subsequent genomic
analysis can be performed.

The long shotgun reads generated using the 454 Sequencing System
allowed the HPA scientists to assemble almost the entire genome
into a comprehensive and detailed genomic map of this pathogen
within hours. The sequence data will assist in on-going efforts to
identify the source of the outbreak, and understand how the strain
may have evolved.

“The combination of fast turnaround time and high-quality, long
sequencing reads makes the GS Junior an ideal research platform for
rapid and comprehensive whole genome analysis in novel pathogen
outbreak situations,” said Christopher McLeod, President and CEO of
454 Life Sciences. “We are gratified that 454 Life Sciences is
helping to improve health care by enabling a quick response to shed
some light on potential epidemics.”

For more information on 454 Sequencing Systems, visit href="www.454.com/">www.454.com

^[1]Health Protection Agency
press release June 13, 2011: href="www.hpa.org.uk/NewsCentre/NationalPressReleases/2011PressReleases/110613Ecoligenome/">
www.hpa.org.uk/NewsCentre/NationalPressReleases/2011PressReleases/110613Ecoligenome/

^[2]The sequence data can be
viewed on the NCBI website href="www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/">www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/.
The GeneBank Project ID is 67929 and the accession number is
afpn00000000. The data can also be viewed on the HPA website: href="www.hpa-bioinformatics.org.uk/lgp/genomes">www.hpa-bioinformatics.org.uk/lgp/genomes.

About Roche

Headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, Roche is a leader in
research-focused healthcare with combined strengths in
pharmaceuticals and diagnostics. Roche is the world’s largest
biotech company with truly differentiated medicines in oncology,
virology, inflammation, metabolism and CNS. Roche is also the world
leader in in-vitro diagnostics, tissue-based cancer diagnostics and
a pioneer in diabetes management. Roche’s personalised healthcare
strategy aims at providing medicines and diagnostic tools that
enable tangible improvements in the health, quality of life and
survival of patients. In 2010, Roche had over 80′000 employees
worldwide and invested over 9 billion Swiss francs in R&D. The
Group posted sales of 47.5 billion Swiss francs. Genentech, United
States, is a wholly owned member of the Roche Group. Roche has a
majority stake in Chugai Pharmaceutical, Japan. For more
information: href="www.roche.com/">www.roche.com.

For life science research only. Not for use in diagnostic
procedures.

454, 454 LIFE SCIENCES, 454 SEQUENCING, and GS JUNIOR are
trademarks of Roche.

Other brands or product names are trademarks of their respective
holders.

    For further information please contact:
                                            454 Life Sciences Corporation, a
    Roche Diagnostics                       Roche Company
    Dr. Burkhard Ziebolz                    Dr. Ulrich Schwoerer
    Phone: +49-8856-604830                  Phone: +1-203-871-2300
    Email: burkhard.ziebolz@roche.com       Email: ulrich.schwoerer@roche.com

.