Whole transcriptome and exome sequencing on challenging clinical samples

In this ESHG 2026 presentation, Pieter Mestdagh, PhD of CellCarta describes the evaluation of Watchmaker RNA and DNA library preparation workflows for whole transcriptome and whole exome sequencing across challenging clinical oncology samples, including low-input and variable-quality FFPE material.

• ~11 hours faster whole transcriptome workflow with the Watchmaker RNA Library Prep Kit with Polaris^® Depletion compared with a targeted RNA-seq approach
• More genes detected with efficient rRNA and globin RNA depletion, plus reproducible RNA-seq performance across input amounts and diverse FFPE samples
• Complex whole exome libraries with strong coverage uniformity and high variant calling accuracy using the Watchmaker DNA Library Prep Kit