High-Throughput, Amplicon-Based Sequencing of the CREBBP Gene as a Tool to Develop a Universal Platform-Independent Assay

High-throughput sequencing technologies are widely used to analyse genomic variants or rare mutational events in different fields of genomic research, with a fast development of new or adapted platforms and technologies, enabling amplicon-based analysis of single target genes or even whole genome sequencing within a short period of time. Each sequencing platform is characterized by well-defined types of errors, resulting from different steps in the sequencing workflow. Here we describe a universal method to prepare amplicon libraries that can be used for sequencing on different high-throughput sequencing platforms. We have sequenced distinct exons of the CREB binding protein (CREBBP) gene and analysed the output resulting from three major deep-sequencing platforms. platform-specific errors were adjusted according to the result of sequence analysis from the remaining platforms. Additionally, bioinformatic methods are described to determine platform dependent errors. Summarizing the results we present a platform-independent cost-efficient and timesaving method that can be used as an alternative to commercially available sample-preparation kits.