Development and scaling of a sequencing pipeline for genomic surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 in New York City

This article has been Reviewed by the following groups

Read the full article See related articles

Discuss this preprint

Start a discussion What are Sciety discussions?

Abstract

In the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, detecting the appearance and spread of variants of concern (VOC) is a critical capability in the fight to quell the virus and return to normalcy. Genomic surveillance of the emergence, propagation, and geographical spread of VOCs is thus an important tool for public health officials and government leaders to make policy decisions and advise the public. As part of our role as a major SARS-CoV-2 diagnostic testing facility in New York City, the Pandemic Response Lab (PRL) has been performing genomic surveillance on the large number of positive samples processed by the facility on a daily basis from throughout the New York metropolitan area. Here we describe the development and optimization of a high-throughput SARS-CoV-2 genome sequencing facility at PRL serving New York City.

Article activity feed

  1. SciScore for 10.1101/2022.05.25.22273991: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Ethicsnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    RNA Extraction of STAT samples at LIC R&D site: Reagent plates including binding plate, wash plate, 80% ethanol plate, and elution plate are prepared in advance for RNA extraction using ThermoScientific KingFisher Flex instrument.
    ThermoScientific KingFisher
    suggested: None
    Sequencing STAT samples: A separate STAT pipeline was established at LIC in order to process high priority patient swabs sent directly from hospital emergency departments.
    STAT
    suggested: None
    Genome assembly and variant calling: For each specimen, sequencing adapters are first trimmed using Trim Galore v0.6.634, then aligned to the SARS-CoV-2 Wuhan-Hu-1 reference genome (NCBI Nucleotide NC_045512.2) using BWA MEM 0.7.17-r118835.
    Trim Galore
    suggested: (Trim Galore, RRID:SCR_011847)
    BWA
    suggested: (BWA, RRID:SCR_010910)

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).


    Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.


    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.


    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.


    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.


    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.