title: Evaluation of affymetrix severe acute respiratory syndrome resequencing GeneChips in characterization of the genomes of two strains of coronavirus infecting humans.
abstract: Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) was discovered during a recent global outbreak of atypical pneumonia. A number of immunologic and molecular studies of the clinical samples led to the conclusion that a novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV) was associated with the outbreak. Later, a SARS resequencing GeneChip was developed by Affymetrix to characterize the complete genome of SARS-CoV on a single GeneChip. The present study was carried out to evaluate the performance of SARS resequencing GeneChips. Two human SARS-CoV strains (CDC#200301157 and Urbani) were resequenced by the SARS GeneChips. Five overlapping PCR amplicons were generated for each strain and hybridized with these GeneChips. The successfully hybridized GeneChips generated nucleotide sequences of nearly complete genomes for the two SARS-CoV strains with an average call rate of 94.6%. Multiple alignments of nucleotide sequences obtained from SARS GeneChips and conventional sequencing revealed full concordance. Furthermore, the GeneChip-based analysis revealed no additional polymorphic sites. The results of this study suggest that GeneChip-based genome characterization is fast and reproducible. Thus, SARS resequencing GeneChips may be employed as an alternate tool to obtain genome sequences of SARS-CoV strains pathogenic for humans in order to further understand the transmission dynamics of these viruses.
authors.affiliation: Biotechnology Core Facility Branch, Scientific Resources Program, National Center for Infectious Diseases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Mailstop G-36, 1600 Clifton Road, Atlanta, GA 30333, USA. isulaiman@cdc.gov
authors.forename: Irshad M
authors.initials: IM
authors.lastname: Sulaiman
authors.forename: Xin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Frace
authors.forename: Nikhat
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Sulaiman
authors.forename: Melissa
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Olsen-Rasmussen
authors.forename: Elizabeth
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Neuhaus
authors.forename: Paul A
authors.initials: PA
authors.lastname: Rota
authors.forename: Robert M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Wohlhueter
mesh_terms: D016679:Genome, Viral; D006801:Humans; D020411:Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis / Q000295:instrumentation; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D045473:Severe acute respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus / Q000145:classification* / Q000235:genetics; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D045169:Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome / Q000821:virology*; D013997:Time Factors