ProbeTools: User-friendly hybridization probe design for hypervariable viral taxa

Hybridization probes are commonly used to enrich viral genomes for sequencing, which is necessary for high-throughput applications. Designing hybridization probes for viral taxa can be difficult, however, due to extensive hypervariability caused by adaptation to new hosts and antigenic drift. ProbeTools applies a heuristic k-mer clustering approach to facilitate the probe design process. We used ProbeTools to design a panel of probes for capturing avian influenza viruses (AIVs). Our panel provided broadly inclusive capture across all AIV subtypes, demonstrated in silico on tens-of-thousands of reference sequences and in vitro on a representative collection of 22 egg-cultured viral isolates. TEAM Kevin Kuchinski, Jun Duan, Chelsea Himsworth, William Hsiao, Natalie Prystajecky

BCCDC POSTER PRESENTER

10/18/2021 3:35:00 PM