Strain-level microbial epidemiology and population genomics from shotgun metagenomics.

Scholz, Matthias; Ward, Doyle V; Pasolli, Edoardo; Tolio, Thomas; Zolfo, Moreno; Asnicar, Francesco; Truong, Duy Tin; Tett, Adrian et al. · Nat Methods · 2016

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

Identifying microbial strains and characterizing their functional potential is essential for pathogen discovery, epidemiology and population genomics. We present pangenome-based phylogenomic analysis (PanPhlAn; http://segatalab.cibio.unitn.it/tools/panphlan), a tool that uses metagenomic data to achieve strain-level microbial profiling resolution. PanPhlAn recognized outbreak strains, produced the largest strain-level population genomic study of human-associated bacteria and, in combination with metatranscriptomics, profiled the transcriptional activity of strains in complex communities.

Medical subject headings