Automated nucleic acid extraction was performed as described previously (20 (link), 21 (link)) using the chemagic 360 (PerkinElmer) following the manufacturer’s protocol. Whole genome sequencing and analysis were performed as previously described (23 (link)).
For a subset of samples, 25 ng of RNA, previously extracted using QIAGEN’s Viral RNA mini kit, was processed following the Illumina RNA Prep with Enrichment (L) Tagmentation protocol with Illumina Respiratory Virus Oligo Panel for single-plex enrichment. Libraries were sequenced on the Illumina MiSeq (2 × 76 bp) or iSeq (2 × 151 bp) platform. FASTQ files were analyzed in Illumina’s BaseSpace using the DRAGEN Pathogen Detection application to generate consensus files. The pangolin web-based application, Phylogenetic Assignment of named Global Outbreak LINeages (PANGOLIN) (https://pangolin.cog-uk.io/) was used to identify the SARS-CoV2 lineages from these consensus sequences. Nextclade (https://clades.nextstrain.org/) was used for clade assignment, sequence quality check, and phylogenetic tree construction.
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