A collaboration involving the University of Maryland Institute for Genome Sciences (IGS; Baltimore, MD) and OpGen Inc. (Gaithersburg, MD) to develop a database of finished, annotated microbial sequences is underway. IGS will provide clinically characterized microbial samples and sequencing data from microbial genomics studies, including from the National Institutes of Health Human Microbiome Project (HMP) and the National Institutes of Health Genomic Sequencing Center for Infectious Diseases (GSCID) research, and OpGen will provide optical maps and sequence finishing technology.
As sequencing and sequence databases are becoming more important in microbiology research and clinical diagnostics, having accurate sequence data in these databases is essential. Even though next-generation sequencing technologies have enabled rapid and low-cost access to sequence data, these technologies fall short of providing insight into the microbial genome architecture and often provide an incomplete or an inaccurate view of the complete microbial genome.
Including optical mapping technology for the characterization of genomes will raise the standard of high-quality genome sequence data and will be of extraordinary value, given the unprecedented amount of next-generation sequencing of clinically relevant organisms, says Claire Frasier-Liggett, Ph.D., Director of IGS and Professor Medicine, Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.
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Posted by Lee Mather
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