Development of a database for rapid detection of pathogens in infectious diseases

2015 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 26870328
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Laboratory medicine; Infectious disease medicine
• Research Institution: Osaka University
• Principal Investigator: Motooka Daisuke 大阪大学, 微生物病研究所, 特任研究員(常勤) (10636830)
• Project Period (FY): 2014-04-01 – 2016-03-31
• Keywords: 感染症

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Metagenomic analysis using high-throughput sequencers is now widely applied for comprehensive detection of pathogens in infectious diseases. The pathogen identification approach is based on a similarity search with known proteins or nucleotides along with a taxonomic assignment of massive sequence reads produced by high-throughput sequencers. To adapt this method for clinical application, high-speed and low-cost calculation are essential. We constructed an infection Metagenomics DataBase (iMetDB), a database optimized for metagenomic diagnosis of infectious diseases. Data records of potential human pathogens, including bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites, were collected from the GenBank database. To test the performance of databases, we carried out metagenomic analysis of influenza virus and norovirus infection cases. The resulting database enabled us perform up to a seven times faster calculation for the same pathogen detection efficiency.

Free Research Field

生命情報科学