Nat. Biotechnol. 37, 783–792 (2019)

Lower respiratory tract infection pathogens can be identified rapidly using nanopore metagenomic sequencing.

Lower respiratory tract infections are treated initially using broad-spectrum antibiotics, as culture techniques to allow a specific diagnosis take too long. This can result in incorrect therapy and the development of antibiotic resistance.

Researchers in the UK have developed a metagenomic nanopore sequencing pipeline in which human DNA is first removed from infected individuals’ sputum before analysis so that bacterial DNA can be identified. The pipeline takes 6 hours and so allows imminent correct diagnosis and therapy selection in the clinical setting.