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Oxford Nanopore Technologies have started shipping Flongle adapters and flow cells to customers. These are disposable flow cells using fewer pores and a cheaper design ($5000 USD for 48 flow cells). I'd estimate that the best runs with well-prepared flow cells should get about 800 Mb of sequence from a 16h run:
The lower cost of these flow cells brings in a number of useful applications. In some cases the yield from a flongle flow cell will be more than enough for sequencing experiments (e.g. plasmid sequencing, high-level microbial metagenomic survey). One other example would be to do a quick QC of samples prior to sequencing on a full flow cell: a half-hour sequencing run on a flongle cell should produce sufficient read quantities for digital electrophoresis to determine loading concentrations for the full run.
These flongle flow cells are compatible with existing MinION sample preparation kits. There's a possibility that ONT might release other flongle-specific kits in the future, but even if not, these flow cells brings the cost per sample down considerably. For example, for a 12-sample rapid barcoding where 50 Mb of sequence per sample might be useful, marginal cost would be ~$115 for sample prep, and $105 for the flow cell, so about $20 per sample.
The lower cost of these flow cells brings in a number of useful applications. In some cases the yield from a flongle flow cell will be more than enough for sequencing experiments (e.g. plasmid sequencing, high-level microbial metagenomic survey). One other example would be to do a quick QC of samples prior to sequencing on a full flow cell: a half-hour sequencing run on a flongle cell should produce sufficient read quantities for digital electrophoresis to determine loading concentrations for the full run.
These flongle flow cells are compatible with existing MinION sample preparation kits. There's a possibility that ONT might release other flongle-specific kits in the future, but even if not, these flow cells brings the cost per sample down considerably. For example, for a 12-sample rapid barcoding where 50 Mb of sequence per sample might be useful, marginal cost would be ~$115 for sample prep, and $105 for the flow cell, so about $20 per sample.