With 10 million new cases and 1.5 million deaths annually, Tuberculosis (TB) remains a priority global health problem. In addition to tuberculosis, recent epidemiological studies have shown the emergence of Non-Tuberculous Mycobacteria (NTM) species in causing lung diseases among humans. Monitoring epidemiological trends is essential to control the spread of such infections and for policy development. Genome sequencing provides the highest possible resolution for pathogen identification, profiling, monitoring and surveillance and is available in most laboratories of high-income countries. However, the current sequencing-based typing resolution is limited due to suboptimal mapping in certain genomic regions in mycobacteria, representing up to 10% of the genome including other hard-to-sequence hypervariable regions that created alignment difficulties. Therefore these regions are always excluded for phylogenetic and cluster analysis of WGS data leading to a decrease in the resolution of the method.
Authors are invited to submit articles with a focus on the current state of knowledge on genomics and to build knowledge of novel genome sequencing-based strategies (i.e. by including hard-to-sequence hypervariable regions in MTBC/NTMs genome) in expanding our understanding of the genomic surveillance in tuberculosis and other infections caused by NTMs to this Special Issue. Original Research, Review, Mini Review and Perspectives will be considered for publication.
With 10 million new cases and 1.5 million deaths annually, Tuberculosis (TB) remains a priority global health problem. In addition to tuberculosis, recent epidemiological studies have shown the emergence of Non-Tuberculous Mycobacteria (NTM) species in causing lung diseases among humans. Monitoring epidemiological trends is essential to control the spread of such infections and for policy development. Genome sequencing provides the highest possible resolution for pathogen identification, profiling, monitoring and surveillance and is available in most laboratories of high-income countries. However, the current sequencing-based typing resolution is limited due to suboptimal mapping in certain genomic regions in mycobacteria, representing up to 10% of the genome including other hard-to-sequence hypervariable regions that created alignment difficulties. Therefore these regions are always excluded for phylogenetic and cluster analysis of WGS data leading to a decrease in the resolution of the method.
Authors are invited to submit articles with a focus on the current state of knowledge on genomics and to build knowledge of novel genome sequencing-based strategies (i.e. by including hard-to-sequence hypervariable regions in MTBC/NTMs genome) in expanding our understanding of the genomic surveillance in tuberculosis and other infections caused by NTMs to this Special Issue. Original Research, Review, Mini Review and Perspectives will be considered for publication.
