1. Respiratory viral co-infections among SARS-CoV-2 cases confirmed by virome capture sequencing.
- Author
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Kim KW, Deveson IW, Pang CNI, Yeang M, Naing Z, Adikari T, Hammond JM, Stevanovski I, Beukers AG, Verich A, Yin S, McFarlane D, Wilkins MR, Stelzer-Braid S, Bull RA, Craig ME, van Hal SJ, and Rawlinson WD
- Subjects
- Australia epidemiology, Coinfection epidemiology, Computational Biology, Genome, Viral, Humans, Open Reading Frames genetics, Reproducibility of Results, Whole Genome Sequencing, COVID-19 diagnosis, COVID-19 virology, Coinfection diagnosis, Coinfection virology, SARS-CoV-2 genetics, Sequence Analysis, DNA, Virome genetics
- Abstract
Accumulating evidence supports the high prevalence of co-infections among Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) patients, and their potential to worsen the clinical outcome of COVID-19. However, there are few data on Southern Hemisphere populations, and most studies to date have investigated a narrow spectrum of viruses using targeted qRT-PCR. Here we assessed respiratory viral co-infections among SARS-CoV-2 patients in Australia, through respiratory virome characterization. Nasopharyngeal swabs of 92 SARS-CoV-2-positive cases were sequenced using pan-viral hybrid-capture and the Twist Respiratory Virus Panel. In total, 8% of cases were co-infected, with rhinovirus (6%) or influenzavirus (2%). Twist capture also achieved near-complete sequencing (> 90% coverage, > tenfold depth) of the SARS-CoV-2 genome in 95% of specimens with Ct < 30. Our results highlight the importance of assessing all pathogens in symptomatic patients, and the dual-functionality of Twist hybrid-capture, for SARS-CoV-2 whole-genome sequencing without amplicon generation and the simultaneous identification of viral co-infections with ease.
- Published
- 2021
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