Targeted amplification for enhanced detection of biothreat agents by next-generation sequencing.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Historically, identification of causal agents of disease has relied heavily on the ability to culture the organism in the laboratory and/or the use of pathogen-specific antibodies or sequence-based probes. However, these methods can be limiting: Even highly sensitive PCR-based assays must be continually updated due to signature degradation as new target strains and near neighbors are sequenced. Thus, there has been a need for assays that do not suffer as greatly from these limitations and/or biases. Recent advances in library preparation technologies for Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) are focusing on the use of targeted amplification and targeted enrichment/capture to ensure that the most highly discriminating regions of the genomes of known targets (organism-unique re

SUBMITTER: Gardner SN 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4647626 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature