Selective Whole-Genome Amplification as a Tool to Enrich Specimens with Low Treponema pallidum Genomic DNA Copies for Whole-Genome Sequencing
Charles M. Thurlow, Sandeep J. Joseph, Lilia Ganova‐Raeva, Samantha S. Katz, Lara Pereira, Cheng Chen, Alyssa Debra, Kendra Vilfort, Kimberly Workowski, Stephanie E. Cohen, Hilary Reno, Yongcheng Sun, Mark Burroughs, Mili Sheth, Kai-Hua Chi, Damien Danavall, Susan Philip, Weiping Cao, Ellen N. Kersh, Allan Pillay
Abstract
. Primary syphilis typically presents as single or multiple mucocutaneous lesions and, if left untreated, can progress through multiple stages with various clinical manifestations. Molecular studies often rely on direct amplification of DNA sequences from clinical specimens; however, this can be impacted by inadequate samples due to disease progression or timing of patients seeking clinical care. While genotyping has provided important data on circulating strains over the past 2 decades, WGS data are needed to better understand strain diversity, perform evolutionary tracing, and monitor antimicrobial resistance markers. The significance of our research is the development of an SWGA DNA enrichment method that expands the range of clinical specimens that can be directly sequenced to include samples with low numbers of T. pallidum.