Medical Engineering and Medical Physics: Metagenomic Sequencing for Viral Diagnostics and Discovery

The application of metagenomic sequencing is transforming microbiology by directly interrogating the entire community composition of a clinical sample in an unbiased manner, reducing reliance on culture-dependent approaches. In concert with the advent of next generation sequencing (NGS) technologies...

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Main Author: Ye, Simon Huang
Other Authors: Sabeti, Pardis
Format: Thesis
Published: Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2022
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/143339
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2570-9588
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author Ye, Simon Huang
author2 Sabeti, Pardis
author_facet Sabeti, Pardis
Ye, Simon Huang
author_sort Ye, Simon Huang
collection MIT
description The application of metagenomic sequencing is transforming microbiology by directly interrogating the entire community composition of a clinical sample in an unbiased manner, reducing reliance on culture-dependent approaches. In concert with the advent of next generation sequencing (NGS) technologies that interrogate extremely large quantities of genetic information on the order of billions to trillions of base pairs per sequencing run, computational approaches are necessary for storing and processing the vast quantity of NGS data into useful biological information. Here we benchmark the performance of metagenomic sequence classification methods, controlling for database differences by using a uniform database. Additionally, we developed an integrated metagenomic NGS (mNGS) computational pipeline incorporating stringent negative controls for the primary diagnosis of a cohort of patients with encephalitis with clinical suspicion of viral infection. These methods were used to interrogate secondary coinfections in patient cohorts with primary HIV and Lassa infection. Metagenomic sequencing can also be utilized to perform large scale screening for the directed evolution of viral vectors. Adeno-associated virus (AAV) is a non-pathogenic virus that infects humans and commonly used as a vector for gene therapy. However, natural AAV serotypes tend to accumulate in the liver, leading to toxic side-effects when higher doses are used to transduce non-liver tissues. In this work, we engineer specific amino acids on the viral capsid of AAV9 and use sequencing to screen millions of viral capsid variants to evolve an engineered AAV with up to 100 times higher muscle tissue specificity over natural AAV.
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spelling mit-1721.1/1433392022-06-16T03:01:23Z Medical Engineering and Medical Physics: Metagenomic Sequencing for Viral Diagnostics and Discovery Ye, Simon Huang Sabeti, Pardis Harvard-MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology The application of metagenomic sequencing is transforming microbiology by directly interrogating the entire community composition of a clinical sample in an unbiased manner, reducing reliance on culture-dependent approaches. In concert with the advent of next generation sequencing (NGS) technologies that interrogate extremely large quantities of genetic information on the order of billions to trillions of base pairs per sequencing run, computational approaches are necessary for storing and processing the vast quantity of NGS data into useful biological information. Here we benchmark the performance of metagenomic sequence classification methods, controlling for database differences by using a uniform database. Additionally, we developed an integrated metagenomic NGS (mNGS) computational pipeline incorporating stringent negative controls for the primary diagnosis of a cohort of patients with encephalitis with clinical suspicion of viral infection. These methods were used to interrogate secondary coinfections in patient cohorts with primary HIV and Lassa infection. Metagenomic sequencing can also be utilized to perform large scale screening for the directed evolution of viral vectors. Adeno-associated virus (AAV) is a non-pathogenic virus that infects humans and commonly used as a vector for gene therapy. However, natural AAV serotypes tend to accumulate in the liver, leading to toxic side-effects when higher doses are used to transduce non-liver tissues. In this work, we engineer specific amino acids on the viral capsid of AAV9 and use sequencing to screen millions of viral capsid variants to evolve an engineered AAV with up to 100 times higher muscle tissue specificity over natural AAV. Ph.D. 2022-06-15T13:13:43Z 2022-06-15T13:13:43Z 2022-02 2022-02-22T19:12:49.549Z Thesis https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/143339 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2570-9588 In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted Copyright MIT http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-EDU/1.0/ application/pdf Massachusetts Institute of Technology
spellingShingle Ye, Simon Huang
Medical Engineering and Medical Physics: Metagenomic Sequencing for Viral Diagnostics and Discovery
title Medical Engineering and Medical Physics: Metagenomic Sequencing for Viral Diagnostics and Discovery
title_full Medical Engineering and Medical Physics: Metagenomic Sequencing for Viral Diagnostics and Discovery
title_fullStr Medical Engineering and Medical Physics: Metagenomic Sequencing for Viral Diagnostics and Discovery
title_full_unstemmed Medical Engineering and Medical Physics: Metagenomic Sequencing for Viral Diagnostics and Discovery
title_short Medical Engineering and Medical Physics: Metagenomic Sequencing for Viral Diagnostics and Discovery
title_sort medical engineering and medical physics metagenomic sequencing for viral diagnostics and discovery
url https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/143339
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2570-9588
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