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Optimisation of SMART-9N for viral metagenomics
Metagenomics enables the analysis of the entire nucleic acid contents of a sample without target-specific amplification. Therefore, it presents itself as an untargeted strategy for viral surveillance, allowing the detection of both known and emerging species and variants. However, sensitivity proves challenging due to the complex microbiomes of samples and...
Are sewers a gold mine of epidemiological data? Applying the ARTIC approach to wastewater
What is wastewater-based epidemiology? Interest in wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) peaked during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic; a number of governments turned to it in the hope of informing their strategy to manage the virus at a time when balancing economic needs with protecting public...
Measles sequencing update
Summary We have recently developed the artic-measles/400/v1.0.0 primer scheme (labs). This scheme has been designed to account for all genetic variation present across all Measles virus (MeV) serotypes, allowing it to be used for samples of unknown (clinical samples) or mixed (environmental surveillance) serotypes. This scheme...