Portable and cost-effective genetic detection and characterization of Plasmodium falciparum hrp2 using the MinION sequencer.

ABSTRACT: The prevalence of Plasmodium falciparum hrp2 (pfhrp2)-deleted parasites threatens the efficacy of the most used and sensitive malaria rapid diagnostic tests and highlights the need for continued surveillance for this gene deletion. While PCR methods are adequate for determining pfhrp2 presence or absence, they offer a limited view of its genetic diversity. Here, we present a portable sequencing method using the MinION. Pfhrp2 amplicons were generated from individual samples, barcoded, and pooled for sequencing. To overcome potential crosstalk between barcodes, we implemented a coverage-based threshold for pfhrp2 deletion confirmation. Amino acid repeat types were then counted and visualized with custom Python scripts following de novo assembly. We evaluated this assay using well-characteri

SUBMITTER: Sabin S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9938884 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature