Exeins Health Initiative and PT Pandu Biosains recently conducted a training at Balai Besar Teknik Kesehatan Lingkungan dan Pengendalian Penyakit (BBTKLPP) Jakarta on 4th–5th October 2023. The training’s objective was to perform amplicon sequencing of malaria genes, enabling high-throughput genotyping results compared to conventional PCR genotyping methods.
On the first day, BBTKLPP Jakarta staffs were given presentations on the importance of genotyping malaria in Indonesia, the library preparation kit that would be used, and general data analysis after sequencing. To begin with, Dr. Leily Trianty disseminated the genes commonly used for malaria genotyping, such as EBA-175 and EBA-140, and the various assays available for genotyping purposes. Afterwards, Yashinta Yulianawati from PT. Pandu Biosains presented on the Illumina DNA Prep, a bead-linked transposome based library preparation kit that simplifies sample preparation for sequencing, enabling a quick turnaround time of results prior to the hands-on. Finally, Edwin Sutanto gave an overview of why we performed sequencing and how the data can be used to analyze malaria genotypes.
The second day, the BBTKLPP Jakarta staffs performed the entire library preparation steps and sequencing, with guidance from Agatha Mia Puspitasari, Pinkan Pertiwi Kariodimedjo, and Ristya Amelia. Firstly, tagmentation step was done to create DNA libraries from samples, then these tagmented DNA were amplified using PCR. The libraries were then quantified using a TapeStation device and pooled together. Lastly, the pooled library was diluted and denatured before starting the sequencing run on an Illumina MiSeq platform as supervised by Yashinta Yulianawati. The run lasted for approximately 24 hours and produced satisfactory results and good quality data.
