Since its release in 2019, researchers have utilized the Genome Detective Typing Tool application to produce a number of phylogenetic clusters and genotypes for emergent viruses that have caused large outbreaks, such as Zika and Yellow Fever Virus in Brazil.
This paper reports on use of Genome Detective to accurately identify the novel severe acute respiratory syndrome related coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) sequences isolated in China and around the world. The tool can accept up to 2,000 sequences per submission and the analysis of a new whole genome sequence will take approximately one minute.
The tool has been tested and validated with hundreds of whole genomes from ten coronavirus species, and correctly classified all of the SARS-related coronavirus (SARSr-CoV) and all of the available public data for SARS-CoV-2. The tool also allows tracking of new viral mutations as the outbreak expands globally, which may help to accelerate the development of novel diagnostics, drugs and vaccines to stop the COVID-19 disease.
Sara Cleemput, Wim Dumon, Vagner Fonseca, Wasim Abdool Karim, Marta Giovanetti, Luiz Carlos Alcantara, Koen Deforche, Tulio de Oliveira, Genome Detective Coronavirus Typing Tool for rapid identification and characterization of novel coronavirus genomes, Bioinformatics Published: 28 February 2020 https://doi.org/10.1093/bioinformatics/btaa145
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