Authors

J Gilleard¹;  ¹ Faculty of Veterinary Medicine , University of Calgary, Canada

Discussion

Advances second and third-generation sequencing technologies over the last decade have revolutionised the analysis of microbial communities and are now being increasingly applied in helminthology research. There are many opportunities, as well as some specific challenges, when applying these approaches to helminths. Long-read and short-read shotgun sequencing are generating many more, and higher quality, reference helminth genomes which will be crucial to apply genome-wide approaches to helminth population genetic studies. However, metabarcoding and targeted deep sequencing have an important roles and are particularly powerful when dealing with large sample numbers, low amounts and/or low quality template DNA (for example in stool samples), and complex and/or poorly defined helminth communities. This talk will focus on recent progress, current resources and future directions in both short-read and long-read metabarcoding (nemabiome metabarcoding) and targeted deep sequencing. Examples will include the use of these methods in the study of anthelmintic drug resistance, molecular epidemiology and molecular diagnostics of parasitic nematodes in both domestic animals and humans.