Agilent Technologies has announced the addition of an important new feature to its Genomic DNA ScreenTape assay-the DNA Integrity Number, or DIN, for assessing the integrity of genomic DNA.

The new feature is designed to ensure the quality of genomics experiments, especially next-generation sequencing (NGS). It builds on the company's technology for assessing the integrity of RNA-the RNA Integrity Number, or RIN.

With the new software feature, the Agilent Genomic DNA ScreenTape assay can now provide an objective measure of DNA integrity for a wide range of samples-not just intact samples from fresh tissue but even the highly degraded samples often obtained from formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissues.

The ability to accurately assess the quality of DNA samples is becoming more important as researchers engage in ever-larger NGS studies. DIN could also prove invaluable at large repositories of tissues, known as biobanks, as a tool for measuring archival quality.

The DIN is expected to play a key role in determining the quality of samples as they enter the NGS workflow. It will help researchers better define their genomic DNA samples, standardize their integrity assessment and potentially streamline their sequencing workflow.

Agilent is making DIN freely available as a software upgrade.