Abstract

Clinical metagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS), the comprehensive analysis of microbial and host genetic material (DNA and RNA) in samples from patients, is rapidly moving from research to clinical laboratories. This emerging approach is changing how physicians diagnose and treat infectious disease, with applications spanning a wide range of areas, including antimicrobial resistance, the microbiome, human host gene expression (transcriptomics) and oncology. Here, we focus on the challenges of implementing mNGS in the clinical laboratory and address potential solutions for maximizing its impact on patient care and public health.

Keywords

MetagenomicsMicrobiomeDNA sequencingComputational biologyInfectious disease (medical specialty)Clinical microbiologyMedicineBioinformaticsDiseaseBiologyGeneInternal medicineGeneticsMicrobiology

MeSH Terms

AnimalsAnti-Bacterial AgentsBacteriaCommunicable DiseasesDNADrug ResistanceMultipleBacterialFungiHelminthsHigh-Throughput Nucleotide SequencingHost-Pathogen InteractionsHumansMedical Laboratory ScienceMetagenomeMetagenomicsPublic HealthViruses

Affiliated Institutions

Related Publications

Publication Info

Year
2019
Type
review
Volume
20
Issue
6
Pages
341-355
Citations
1422
Access
Closed

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1422
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38
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Cite This

Charles Y. Chiu, Steven A. Miller (2019). Clinical metagenomics. Nature Reviews Genetics , 20 (6) , 341-355. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41576-019-0113-7

Identifiers

DOI
10.1038/s41576-019-0113-7
PMID
30918369
PMCID
PMC6858796

Data Quality

Data completeness: 86%