How does the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) change its genetic material? What other infections do patients suffer from? Are there genetic predispositions to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)? A number of genomics researchers are working hard to bring together their expertise and sequencing infrastructure to help manage the COVID-19 pandemic. In order to accelerate research, these activities are now officially combined in the German COVID-19 OMICS Initiative (DeCOI). Scientists from more than 22 institutes are already involved in DeCOI. The NFDI4Microbiota consortium and its members are actively contributing to this initiative.
COVID-19
NFDI4Microbiota supports the genome sequencing of SARS-CoV-2
The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which causes the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), is now a global threat. Knowledge about COVID-19 must thus be extended immediately. Unfortunately, relatively few genome sequences of SARS-CoV-2 are currently publicly available. To improve this situation, NFDI4Microbiota and partner laboratories are offering to assist researchers in sample preparation, genome sequencing and assembly of SARS-CoV-2, as well as in immediate deposition of resulting sequences in public repositories.
The aim is to significantly increase the number of publicly accessible genome sequences of SARS-CoV-2. Further information can be found on the NFDI4Microbiota webpage SARS-CoV-2 genome sequencing. If you are interested in this service, please contact us at covid19-seq@ndfi4microbiota.de.
The NFDI4Microbiota consortium helps scientists researching SARS-CoV-2 and other viruses
The NFDI4Microbiota consortium consists of well-established institutions researching bacteria, archaea, protozoa, fungi and viruses. These institutions are already supporting scientists researching the SARS-CoV-2 and the COVID-19 outbreak by providing infrastructure, services and expertise. We invite members of the microbiology community to contact us if you need help in analyzing/hosting large data sets or provision of services (contact@nfdi4microbiota.de).
Below is a curated selection of infrastructure, services and activities offered by our consortium members and whose purpose is to serve the virology community.
Web services
- VirusTracker, a web platform to visualize a global spread reconstruction of COVID-19 using air travel and viral genomics data (HZI).
- Development of astarget, a web service for the design of Locked Nucleic Acid (LNA) block specific RNA-interactions. It has already been successfully applied to IncRNAs in human, and it is currently been used to probe and disturb relevant interactions in coronaviruses (SYNMIKRO and UMR).
- Access to compute and storage resources for analyses, as well as hosting of several web services (de.NBI Cloud).
- Access to WASP, a versatile web accessible single cell RNA-seq processing platform (JLU Giessen).
- Development of a platform for FAIR data management, including reproducible and scalable automatic data analysis workflows for the investigation of virus-host interactions (JLU Giessen).
- Access to several text mining and (full) genome analysis services on the ZB MED COVID-19 Hub (ZB MED).
Data collection and data sets
- Viral genome sequencing and annotations (UFZ).
- Virus detection and annotation (e.g., in groundwater) (FSU Jena).
- Nanopore sequencing and modification detection (FSU Jena).
- Development of a repository of coronavirus-related literature ready for text mining (ZB MED).
Methods and standard development
- Detection of amino acid changes providing selective benefit to rapidly evolving viruses. This method, applied to SARS-CoV-2, suggests changes linked to adaptation to the human host since the introduction of this virus into a human population (HZI).
- Development of a method for the design of peptides to block the binding sites of proteins (e.g., receptors). This method is currently used to target the coronavirus spike-protein (UMR).
- Understanding virus emergence from animal reservoirs (FSU Jena).
- Analysis of virus-host interaction (UFZ) during infections with human pathogenic viruses (incl. coronaviruses) by dual RNA-seq. Standardized analysis pipelines and tools for data visualization have been developed and can be made available upon request (JLU Giessen).
- Predicting the host of a virus based on the viral genome sequence (FSU Jena).
- Reconstruction of geographic spread paths and putative outbreak source of RNA viruses (HZI).
- Development of Haploflow, a strain-resolved assembler for viromes and samples with multiple viral strains (HZI).
- Development of a method for linear viral epitope detection (HZI).
- Benchmarking overview and workflow (QuasiModo) of tools for analyzing whole genome sequencing data from clinical samples with mixed strain infections of large viruses (HZI).
- Comparative genome and phylogenetic analyses (UFZ).
- Establishment of a fully automated bioinformatic pipeline for virome analysis (UFZ).
- Virome analysis within the MGX software platform (JLU Giessen).
- Development of specific bioinformatics tools to be applied in virology (FSU Jena).
- Identifying RNA structures and functions in viruses (FSU Jena).
- Metadata standardization for coronavirus genomes being deposited in public repositories (UFZ).
Diagnosis and vaccines
- Development of (1) a SARS-CoV-2 diagnostic pipeline and (2) generic pan-virus assays (UFZ).
- Development of a universal vaccine against influenza viruses (HZI).