Data from: Benefits and challenges with applying unique molecular identifiers in next generation sequencing to detect low frequency mutations

Indexing individual template molecules with a unique identifier (UID)
before PCR and deep sequencing is promising for detecting low frequency
mutations, as true mutations could be distinguished from PCR errors or
sequencing errors based on consensus among reads sharing same index. In an
effort to develop a robust assay to detect from urine low-abundant bladder
cancer cells carrying well-documented mutations, we have tested the idea
first on a set of mock templates, with wild type and known mutants mixed
at defined ratios. We have measured the combined error rate for PCR and
Illumina sequencing at each nucleotide position of three exons, and
demonstrated the power of a UID in distinguishing and correcting errors.
In addition, we have demonstrated that PCR sampling bias, rather than PCR
errors, challenges the UID-deep sequencing method in faithfully detecting
low frequency mutation.