Enzymatic fragmentation of DNA as part of the library prep workflow provides many advantages compared to mechanical shearing. However, specialized fragmentation reagents are required for enzymatic shearing in order to maintain methylation marks on samples for methylome analysis or for use with challenging samples such as FFPE DNA.

NEBNext UltraShear™ is a mix of enzymes that has been designed and optimized to fragment these sample types upstream of library preparation. This improves library quality and allows retention of methylation marks.

View or download extensive performance data in our Data Supplement.

• Compatible with methylation analysis workflows, including NEBNext^® Enzymatic Methyl-seq (EM-seq™) (NEB #E7120)
• Compatible with FFPE DNA
• Fast workflow with minimal hands-on time
• For methylation analysis, improves library yields, CpG coverage and sequencing metrics
• For FFPE DNA, increases usable reads and coverage uniformity and decreases artificial mutation frequency

Note that for high quality genomic DNA library prep with enzymatic fragmentation, we recommend NEBNext Ultra™ II FS DNA Library Prep for Illumina^® (NEB #E7805, #E6177).

FFPE DNA poses many challenges for library preparation, including low input amounts and highly variable damage from fixation, storage, and extraction methods. Regions of interest are often enriched using hybrid capture-based approaches, and these workflows require a high input of diverse, uniform DNA library.

The NEBNext Ultrashear™ FFPE DNA Library Prep Kit incorporates enzymatic fragmentation of FFPE DNA using NEBNext UltraShear, a new enzyme mix optimized for use with FFPE DNA that increases library yields and quality, while improving scalability and ease of use. The kit also repairs damage to DNA caused by the FFPE process and includes reagents and a protocol optimized for library prep of FFPE DNA. The workflow is streamlined and user-friendly, with minimal hands-on time, and the kit improves yields and quality of libraries from a range of FFPE DNA sample input (5-250 ng) and quality.

View or download extensive performance data in our Data Supplement.

• Includes specialized enzymatic fragmentation and FFPE DNA repair reagents, plus optimized library prep reagents and protocol
• Increased library yields
• Improved sequencing metrics
• Greater sensitivity of somatic variant calling
• 5-250 ng input range
• Automation-friendly workflow

For FFPE DNA library prep without enzymatic fragmentation, the NEBNext FFPE DNA Library Prep Kit (NEB #E6650) is available.