DoGsTAils: developing nanopore-based diagnostic approaches for the effective antimicrobial stewardship of canine infections

Abstract

We are developing DNA extraction and sequencing methods to facilitate the rapid identification of pathogens in urine, skin, and blood samples from dogs. Our current protocol can detect species from as little as 0.50ng gDNA, and in the near future we hope to start offering it in addition to the current culture-based tests already available at the University of Edinburgh Hospital for Small Animals. We intend our data analysis pipeline to also include the prediction of antimicrobial resistance from the same data, and are now testing a suite of existing tools to determine the best methods for this.