Melioidosis in goats at a single Australian farm was caused by multiple diverse lineages of Burkholderia pseudomallei present in soil.

Background: Burkholderia pseudomallei, causative agent of melioidosis, is a One Health concern as it is acquired directly from soil and water and causes disease in humans and agricultural and wild animals. We examined B. pseudomallei in soil and goats at a single farm in the Northern Territory of Australia where >30 goats acquired melioidosis over nine years.

Impact of heteroresistance on treatment outcomes of people with drug-resistant TB.

Background: Poor treatment outcomes among people with drug-resistant TB (DR-TB) are a major concern. Heteroresistance (presence of susceptible and resistant in the same sample) has been identified in some people with TB, but its impact on treatment outcomes is unknown.

Methods: We used targeted deep sequencing to identify mutations associated with DR-TB and heteroresistance in culture samples of 624 people with DR-TB.

Sequencing by binding rivals SMOR error-corrected sequencing by synthesis technology for accurate detection and quantification of minor (< 0.1%) subpopulation variants.

Background: Detecting very minor (< 1%) subpopulations using next-generation sequencing is a critical need for multiple applications, including the detection of drug resistant pathogens and somatic variant detection in oncology. A recently available sequencing approach termed 'sequencing by binding (SBB)' claims to have higher base calling accuracy data "out of the box." This paper evaluates the utility of using SBB for the detection of ultra-rare drug resistant subpopulations in Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) using a targeted amplicon assay and compares the performance of SBB to single molecule overlapping reads (SMOR) error corrected sequencing by synthesis (SBS) data.

Sequencing by Binding rivals error-corrected Sequencing by Synthesis technology for accurate detection and quantification of minor (<0.1%) subpopulation variants.

Detecting very minor (< 1%) subpopulations using next-generation sequencing is a critical need for multiple applications including detection of drug resistant pathogens and somatic variant detection in oncology. To enable these applications, wet lab enhancements and bioinformatic error correction methods have been developed for 'sequencing by synthesis' technology to reduce its inherent sequencing error rate. A recently available sequencing approach termed 'sequencing by binding' claims to have higher base calling accuracy data "out of the box.