Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS) and the food industry

Conventional serotyping has been used for Salmonella subtyping for over 80 years. WGS was first used to trace a Salmonella outbreak in the US in 2009.

Chongtao described their serotyping approach, using nanopore sequencing with GridION.

Overall results for 38 isolates (34 serotypes) showed that ‘all the [serotype] predictions made by using ONT sequencing are exactly the same’ as those using short-read sequencing.

The entire process, from sample to Salmonella serotype, takes 1 day with nanopore WGS.

Chongtao stated that nanopore technology ‘has the potential to improve microbial risk management in the food industry’.