REVIEW article
Front. Microbiol.
Sec. Infectious Agents and Disease
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2025.1665685
Diagnosis of Nontuberculous mycobacterial (NTM) infections using Genomics and Artificial Intelligence-Machine Learning Approaches: scope, progress and challenges
Provisionally accepted
- National JALMA Institute for Leprosy & Other Mycobacterial Diseases (ICMR), Agra, India
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The nontuberculous mycobacterial (NTM) infections cause morbidity and mortality in individuals who are immunocompromised and those with lung conditions. The timely diagnosis of NTM infections is thus the need of the hour for appropriate management of the disease. In this context, genomics has played a pivotal role in diagnosis of NTM by targeting various conserved regions which are useful for species identification and diagnosis. Also, the exploring of whole genome of nontuberculous mycobacteria has made species identification easier and has revolutionized the diagnostic landscape of NTM. The refinement of Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS) and the advent of targeted Next Generation Sequencing (tNGS) and metagenomic NGS (mNGS) has helped in bringing down the cost without compromising the quality in NTM diagnostics. The advent of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies has made NTM diagnosis even easier by analyzing complex genomic data and providing faster results. Thus, this comprehensive review discusses the strides made in genomics and AI based approaches in the diagnosis of NTM infections and the way forward for harnessing this potential to the maximum for the benefit of mankind.
Keywords: Non tuberculous mycobacteria, diagnosis, Genomics, artificial intelligence, machine learning, next generation sequencing
Received: 16 Jul 2025; Accepted: 18 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Murthy, Gupta and Maurya. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Madhan Kumar Murthy, National JALMA Institute for Leprosy & Other Mycobacterial Diseases (ICMR), Agra, India
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