Pathogen detection techniques based on culture PCR, or serology are still regarded as the gold standards for pathogen detection, even though these techniques present significant limitations due to their turnover time, low positivity rates and low sensitivity. Next-generation sequencing (NGS) techniques are capable of addressing many of these shortcomings with the high-throughput approach of nucleic acid sequencing, in which millions to billions of short fragments of DNA (reads) or RNA (transcripts) are massively sequenced in parallel (Behjati and Tarpey, 2013). With the help of bioinformatics, these fragments can then be assembled and mapped against a reference database for fast and accurate pathogen identification. NGS-based approaches have the potential to significantly improve throughput capabilities of clinical laboratories, while also enhancing detection sensitivity and resolution.
Despite the increasing affordability of sequencing per megabase of DNA, sequencing costs still represent a major portion (up to 80%) of the total costs associated with the employment of NGS-based techniques in clinical settings.
While the cost of sequencing and turn-around times (TAT) associated with NGS have been consistently decreasing (Wetterstrand, 2021), host DNA interference still presents a major limitation that withholds NGS from mass adoption in clinical settings today. A major driver for the reduction of cost and TAT of the sequencing run is an effective host depletion method. The products offered by Micronbrane, Devin™ filter and PaRTI-Seq™, offer healthcare providers a new complete solution that makes NGS pathogen detection for clinical diagnostics of infectious diseases faster, and at the same time, more efficient and affordable.