Hybridization of 12 flu patient samples on 1 GIS H1N1 Biosurveillance Resequencing Array.

In April 2009, a novel Influenza A(H1N1) strain was discovered in the Americas, which rapidly spread across the globe to >200 countries, resulting in >6500 deaths as of Nov 2009. This virus has the potential to develop mutations which could lead to changes in immune epitope, virulence, clinical severity or drug resistance. Currently, scientists and researchers are using sequencing approaches to monitor these changes.

We have developed and validated a rapid, high-throughput platform to determine the complete genome sequence of the pandemic (H1N1) 2009 virus infecting a patient within 2 days. This platform comprises a 12-plex microarray (manufactured by Nimblegen), specialized primers for RT-PCR, and proprietary array-reading algorithms to generate high quality sequence calls. Graphical readout showing sequencing quality as well as FASTA file of the sequence are automatically generated using the GIS EvolSTAR software (included).

This platform has been field tested on samples from Singapore and Mexico. The array has a call rate of 99% with accuracy >99.99%. Compared to capillary sequencing, errors occur at a rate of 1.4 per 100,000 bases sequenced.