Design methods for sensitive and comprehensive microbial surveillance

This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Metsky, Hayden C.
Other Authors: Pardis C. Sabeti.
Format: Thesis
Language:eng
Published: Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2020
Subjects:
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/128293
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author Metsky, Hayden C.
author2 Pardis C. Sabeti.
author_facet Pardis C. Sabeti.
Metsky, Hayden C.
author_sort Metsky, Hayden C.
collection MIT
description This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.
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spelling mit-1721.1/1282932020-11-04T03:02:40Z Design methods for sensitive and comprehensive microbial surveillance Metsky, Hayden C. Pardis C. Sabeti. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections. Thesis: Ph. D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2020 Cataloged from student-submitted PDF of thesis. Includes bibliographical references (pages 169-203). We are surrounded by a vast and dynamic microbial world. Effective surveillance tools can benefit medicine and public health, including infectious disease diagnostics, proactive pathogen detection and characterization, and microbiome studies. New genomic technologies are transforming microbial surveillance, but face challenges stemming from low concentrations in collected samples and extensive, ever-changing diversity. In this thesis, we first demonstrate a need for stronger surveillance through mapping the spread of Zika virus during the 2015-16 epidemic. We generate 110 Zika virus genomes from across the Americas, forming the largest and most diverse Zika virus dataset at the time. We perform a Bayesian phylogenetic analysis of Zika's spread and discover that it circulated undetected in multiple regions for many months. Two reasons are that Zika virus is present in samples at ultra-low abundance and was, during its rapid spread, an obscure pathogen. Motivated by this, we develop computational approaches that enable sensitive, comprehensive surveillance. We present CATCH, an algorithm that enhances enrichment of highly diverse whole genomes for more sensitive sequencing. CATCH designs scalable capture probe sets that are comprehensive, to a well-defined extent, against known sequence diversity. We use CATCH to design probes targeting whole genomes of the 356 viral species known to infect humans, including their vast subspecies diversity. Applied to 30 patient and environmental samples, we show that these probes improve hypothesis-free detection of viral infections and considerably enhance genome assembly. Academic labs, research hospitals, and government public health institutes are using CATCH to help detect and characterize microbes. We also present ADAPT, a system for end-to-end sequence design of nucleic acid diagnostic assays. We develop algorithms to comprehensively consider known diversity and enforce high taxon-specificity, even under relaxed criteria arising with RNA binding. Focusing on CRISPR-Cas13 detection, we perform high-throughput screening of crRNA-target pairs and develop a model, applied to our dataset, that predicts detection activity; using this, ADAPT's designs have high predicted activity. Along with CATCH, ADAPT advances microbial surveillance by leveraging and progressing with the extensive, ever-changing landscape of microbial genome diversity. by Hayden C. Metsky. Ph. D. Ph.D. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science 2020-11-03T20:28:27Z 2020-11-03T20:28:27Z 2020 2020 Thesis https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/128293 1201307688 eng MIT theses may be protected by copyright. Please reuse MIT thesis content according to the MIT Libraries Permissions Policy, which is available through the URL provided. http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582 203 pages application/pdf Massachusetts Institute of Technology
spellingShingle Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
Metsky, Hayden C.
Design methods for sensitive and comprehensive microbial surveillance
title Design methods for sensitive and comprehensive microbial surveillance
title_full Design methods for sensitive and comprehensive microbial surveillance
title_fullStr Design methods for sensitive and comprehensive microbial surveillance
title_full_unstemmed Design methods for sensitive and comprehensive microbial surveillance
title_short Design methods for sensitive and comprehensive microbial surveillance
title_sort design methods for sensitive and comprehensive microbial surveillance
topic Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
url https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/128293
work_keys_str_mv AT metskyhaydenc designmethodsforsensitiveandcomprehensivemicrobialsurveillance