Novel Pathogen Discovery with NGS Platforms

 

NGS has developed into a powerful tool that can be used to detect, identify and quantify novel viruses in one step. It is proving to be a sensitive method for detecting putative infectious agents associated with host tissues and pathogen's transcripts can be detected at frequencies lower than 1 in 1,000,000. One of the fortunate consequences of deep sequencing is the coincidental sequencing of DNA or RNA genome, which has led to the discovery of an increasing number of novel pathogens. This comes at a time when the globalization of travel and trade, as well as climate change and its effects on vector distribution, are facilitating the emergence and reemergence of zoonoses.