Sensitive Identification of Bacterial DNA in Clinical Specimens by Broad-Range 16S rRNA Gene Enrichment
Sara Rassoulian Barrett, Noah G. Hoffman, Christopher Rosenthal, Andrew Bryan, Desiree A. Marshall, Joshua A. Lieberman, Alexander L. Greninger, Vikas Peddu, Brad T. Cookson, Stephen J. Salipante
Abstract
genomes from a background of 100 ng of human DNA, providing 19- to 189-fold greater sensitivity for identifying bacterial sequences than standard shotgun metagenomic sequencing, and is able to successfully recover organisms from across the eubacterial tree of life. Application of 16S Capture to a proof-of-principle case series demonstrated its ability to identify bacterial species that were consistent with histological evidence of infection, even when diagnosis could not be established using conventional broad range bacterial detection assays. 16S Capture provides a novel means for the efficient and sensitive detection of bacteria embedded in human tissues and for specimens containing highly fragmented template DNA.