Targeted amplification and MinION nanopore sequencing of key azole and echinocandin resistance determinants of clinically relevant Candida spp. from blood culture bottles

The objective of the study was to evaluate the use of targeted multiplex Nanopore MinION amplicon re-sequencing of key Candida spp. from blood culture bottles to identify azole and echinocandin resistance associated SNPs. Targeted PCR amplification of azole (ERG11 and ERG3) and echinocandin (FKS) resistance-associated loci was performed on positive blood culture media. Sequencing was performed using MinION nanopore device with R9.4.1 Flow Cells. Twenty-eight spiked blood cultures (ATCC strains and clinical isolates) and 12 prospectively collected positive blood cultures with candidaemia were included. Isolate species included Candida albicans, Candida glabrata, Candida krusei, Candida parapsilosis, Candida tropicalis and Candida auris. SNPs that were identified on ERG and FKS genes using Snippy tool and CLC Genomic Workbench were correlated with phenotypic testing by broth microdilution (YeastOne™ Sensititre). Illumina whole-genome-sequencing and Sanger-sequencing were also performed as confirmatory testing of the mutations identified from nanopore sequencing data. There was a perfect agreement of the resistance-associated mutations detected by MinION-nanopore-sequencing compared to phenotypic testing for acquired resistance (16 with azole resistance; 3 with echinocandin resistance), and perfect concordance of the nanopore sequence mutations to Illumina and Sanger data. Mutations with no known association with phenotypic drug resistance and novel mutations were also detected.     

基于纳米孔测序技术的柑橘黄龙病检测方法建立

柑橘黄龙病(Huanglongbing)是柑橘生产上最具毁灭性的病害,及时快速地进行早期检测和诊断是防控黄龙病的关键措施之一.本文利用掌上纳米孔测序仪MinION对携带黄龙病菌Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus的DNA样品进行测序,并利用Blast、GraphMap、minimap2以及两种bwa的比对方法将测序结果比对到黄龙病菌基因组上,比对结果均匀的比对到黄龙病菌基因组上,并未发现严重的偏倚现象,验证了其测序结果的可靠性.本技术可弥补因柑橘木虱Diaphorina citri(Kuwayama)虫体过小或损坏难以进行光学识别的不足,并可同时检测虫体是否携带有黄龙病菌,对有黄龙病发生风险但尚未有黄龙病实际发生的柑橘种植区提供实时实地的监控与预警.     

Non-invasive diagnosis of cutaneous leishmaniasis by the direct boil loop-mediated isothermal amplification method and MinION™ nanopore sequencing

Cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) is gaining attention as a public health problem. We present two cases of CL imported from Syria and Venezuela in Japan. We diagnosed them as CL non-invasively by the direct boil loop-mediated isothermal amplification method and an innovative sequencing method using the MinION? sequencer. This report demonstrates that our procedure could be useful for the diagnosis of CL in both clinical and epidemiological settings.     

利用纳米孔测序鉴定蓖麻蚕病害

蓖麻蚕Samia ricini为大蚕蛾科樗蚕属的绢丝与食用的非滞育型经济昆虫,且是少数可以室内大量圈养的绢丝昆虫,全年可累代饲养.在蓖麻蚕室内大批量圈养的生产过程可能遭受毁灭性病害的侵害,包括蓖麻蚕微粒子病、脓病、软化病等,且随着累代对病原物的不停积累蚕病会呈现愈发严重的趋势,病原愈发难以清除.因此,对蚕病的监测是防控蚕病爆发的重要手段之一.掌上纳米孔测序仪MinION是一款便携式高通量测序平台,便于实地进行DNA测序并对病原物进行检测.本文通过MinION测序仪对蓖麻蚕病蚕DNA进行测序,并对未知病原物DNA序列进行分析,探讨了利用MinION测序仪鉴定蓖麻蚕病原的可行性,对蚕病的监测提供了保障.     

Oxford Nanopore MinION Sequencing and Genome Assembly

The revolution of genome sequencing is continuing after the successful second-generation sequencing (SGS) technology. The third-generation sequencing (TGS) technology, led by Pacific Biosciences (PacBio), is progressing rapidly, moving from a technology once only capable of providing data for small genome analysis, or for performing targeted screening, to one that pro-mises high quality de novo assembly and structural variation detection for human-sized genomes. In 2014, the MinION, the first commercial sequencer using nanopore technology, was released by Oxford Nanopore Technologies (ONT). MinION identifies DNA bases by measuring the changes in electrical conductivity generated as DNA strands pass through a biological pore. Its portability, affordability, and speed in data production makes it suitable for real-time applications, the release of the long read sequencer MinION has thus generated much excitement and interest in the geno-mics community. While de novo genome assemblies can be cheaply produced from SGS data, assem-bly continuity is often relatively poor, due to the limited ability of short reads to handle long repeats. Assembly quality can be greatly improved by using TGS long reads, since repetitive regions can be easily expanded into using longer sequencing lengths, despite having higher error rates at the base level. The potential of nanopore sequencing has been demonstrated by various studies in gen-ome surveillance at locations where rapid and reliable sequencing is needed, but where resources are limited.     

Rapid mitochondrial genome sequencing based on Oxford Nanopore Sequencing and a proxy for vertebrate species identification

Molecular information is crucial for species identification when facing challenging morphology‐based specimen identifications. The use of DNA barcodes partially solves this problem, but in some cases when PCR is not an option (i.e., primers are not available, problems in reaction standardization), amplification‐free approaches could be an optimal alternative. Recent advances in DNA sequencing, like the MinION device from Oxford Nanopore Technologies (ONT), allow to obtain genomic data with low laboratory and technical requirements, and at a relatively low cost. In this study, we explore ONT sequencing for molecular species identification from a total DNA sample obtained from a neotropical rodent and we also test the technology for complete mitochondrial genome reconstruction via genome skimming. We were able to obtain “de novo” the complete mitogenome of a specimen from the genus Melanomys (Cricetidae: Sigmodontinae) with average depth coverage of 78X using ONT‐only data and by combining multiple assembly routines. Our pipeline for an automated species identification was able to identify the sample using unassembled sequence data (raw) in a reasonable computing time, which was substantially reduced when a priori information related to the organism identity was known. Our findings suggest ONT sequencing as a suitable candidate to solve species identification problems in metazoan nonmodel organisms and generate complete mtDNA datasets.