“No detail is too small,” Mark Eppinger, PhD, said in a statement. “We can use these differences to trace the outbreak back to its contaminated source by looking to see if these traits existed in other reported outbreaks of the same pathogen.”
The UTSA-developed method is a form of whole-genome sequencing that can identify characteristics unique to individual outbreaks. Identifying those details can help trace bacteria back to a country or region, if not a precise location in some instances. Ferreting out those details can also help clinicians predict how deadly an outbreak will be and which distinct symptoms it might present with, according to Dr. Eppinger.
The research is published in Frontiers in Microbiology.
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