NGS-PrimerPlex: High-throughput primer design for multiplex polymerase chain reactions

PLoS Comput Biol. 2020 Dec 30;16(12):e1008468. doi: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1008468. eCollection 2020 Dec.

Abstract

Multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR) has multiple applications in molecular biology, including developing new targeted next-generation sequencing (NGS) panels. We present NGS-PrimerPlex, an efficient and versatile command-line application that designs primers for different refined types of amplicon-based genome target enrichment. It supports nested and anchored multiplex PCR, redistribution among multiplex reactions of primers constructed earlier, and extension of existing NGS-panels. The primer design process takes into consideration the formation of secondary structures, non-target amplicons between all primers of a pool, primers and high-frequent genome single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) overlapping. Moreover, users of NGS-PrimerPlex are free from manually defining input genome regions, because it can be done automatically from a list of genes or their parts like exon or codon numbers. Using the program, the NGS-panel for sequencing the LRRK2 gene coding regions was created, and 354 DNA samples were studied successfully with a median coverage of 97.4% of target regions by at least 30 reads. To show that NGS-PrimerPlex can also be applied for bacterial genomes, we designed primers to detect foodborne pathogens Salmonella enterica, Escherichia coli O157:H7, Listeria monocytogenes, and Staphylococcus aureus considering variable positions of the genomes.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Codon
  • Escherichia coli O157 / genetics
  • Escherichia coli O157 / isolation & purification
  • Exons
  • Genes, Bacterial
  • Genes, Viral
  • High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing / methods*
  • Leucine-Rich Repeat Serine-Threonine Protein Kinase-2 / genetics
  • Listeria monocytogenes / genetics
  • Listeria monocytogenes / isolation & purification
  • Multiplex Polymerase Chain Reaction / methods*
  • Nucleic Acid Hybridization
  • Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide
  • Staphylococcus aureus / genetics
  • Staphylococcus aureus / isolation & purification
  • Viruses / genetics

Substances

  • Codon
  • Leucine-Rich Repeat Serine-Threonine Protein Kinase-2

Grants and funding

The study was supported under Russian State funded budget project of ICBFM SB RAS #АААА-А17-117020210025-5 “Development of the methods of personalized medicine” for AK,VB,UB, EK,SS, MF. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.