Benefits
- Genotyping and epidemiology of seasonal, pandemic, and exceptional strains
- Updated reference databases reflect newly described strains
- Detection of resistance to neuraminidase inhibitors
Influenza viruses cause yearly epidemics, with unpredictable spread and pathogenicity. Sequence-based genotyping has become the method of choice to track the epidemics for public health surveillance and therapeutic intervention. Drug resistance determination is being applied in order to optimize the use of available antiviral therapies. Depending on the scale of the epidemic, laboratories can face dramatically increased testing volumes, and thus need to prepare in advance the rapid testing and analysis of sequence information to be carried out in an outbreak situation.
The SmartGene Influenza Module helps laboratories analyze and manage flu sequence data in a variety of ways. It supports the direct uploading and editing of chromatograms for hemagglutinin (HA), neuraminidase (NA), matrix, and other targets. The system automatically assembles and aligns the sequence fragments using representative reference strains embedded in the IDNS-ProofReader, thus expediting the creation of reliable and easily edited contigs.
Sample sequences can then be compared to an updated reference database of multiple targets, in order to determine the most likely subtype. A direct link to the original publication is included with each reference sequence.
Clipboard functions allow for an easy comparison of each sample to the most frequently encountered subtypes in the area. Subtype-specific, automated mutation detection reveals mutations which may confer resistance to drugs.
The searchable sample archive allows for easy queries on all samples analyzed, e.g. genotypes over a certain period of time, etc. GPS coordinates in the sample record, inferred from the geographic origin of the sample, can be used for plotting outbreaks on a map. Integrated sequence comparison tools, such as multi-alignments and ad-hoc dendrograms, help to identify case relationships and allow for online surveillance of an epidemic.
Finally, the networking capabilities as described in the IDNS Networks section enable laboratories to securely share their data online, if they wish.
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If you are ready to evaluate SmartGene Influenza in your laboratory, please contact us via e-mail or fill out and send us this form.
