Computational pan-genome mapping and pairwise SNP-distance improve detection of < i > Mycobacterium tuberculosis < /i > transmission clusters

This study introduces PANPASCO, a computational pan-genome mapping based, pairwise distance method that is highly sensitive to differ ences between cases, even when located in regions of lineage specific reference genomes. We show that our approach is superior to previously published methods in several datasets and across differentMycobacterium tuberculosis lineages, as its characteristics allow the comparison of a high number of diverse samples in one analysis —a scenario that becomes more and more likely with the increased usage of whole-genome sequencing in transmission surveillance.
Source: PLoS Computational Biology - Category: Biology Authors: Source Type: research