publication

Title
An Amplicon-based Sequencing Framework for Accurately Measuring Intrahost Virus Diversity using PrimalSeq and iVar.

Journal
Genome Biology. 2019 Jan 8;20(1):8. doi: 10.1186/s13059-018-1618-7.

Authors
Grubaugh ND, Gangavarapu K, Quick J, Matteson NL, De Jesus JG, Main BJ, Tan AL, Paul LM, Brackney DE, Grewal S, Gurfield N, Van Rompay KKA, Isern S, Michael SF, Coffey LL, Loman NJ, Andersen KG.

Abstract
How viruses evolve within hosts can dictate infection outcomes; however, reconstructing this process is challenging. We evaluate our multiplexed amplicon approach, PrimalSeq, to demonstrate how virus concentration, sequencing coverage, primer mismatches, and replicates influence the accuracy of measuring intrahost virus diversity. We develop an experimental protocol and computational tool, iVar, for using PrimalSeq to measure virus diversity using Illumina and compare the results to Oxford Nanopore sequencing. We demonstrate the utility of PrimalSeq by measuring Zika and West Nile virus diversity from varied sample types and show that the accumulation of genetic diversity is influenced by experimental and biological systems.