Project description:This data is part of a miRNA platform comparison study. We compared the performance characteristics of four commercial miRNA array technologies and found that all platforms performed well in separate measures of performance. The Ambion and Agilent platforms were more accurate, whereas the Illumina and Exiqon platforms were more specific. Furthermore, the data analysis approach had a large impact on the performance, predominantly by improving precision.
Project description:This data is part of a miRNA platform comparison study. We compared the performance characteristics of four commercial miRNA array technologies and found that all platforms performed well in separate measures of performance. The Ambion and Agilent platforms were more accurate, whereas the Illumina and Exiqon platforms were more specific. Furthermore, the data analysis approach had a large impact on the performance, predominantly by improving precision. Performance of four (4) commercially available miRNA platforms was evaluated using 7 placenta samples spiked with synthetic microRNA spikes (in Latin-square design) absent in placenta. Platforms were primarily evaluated for accuracy and specificity.
Project description:Domestic animals as a reservoir for toxigenic Corynebacterium ulcerans. - Core-genome cgMLST (cgMLST) confirms first zoonotic transmission of diphtheria in Spain.
Project description:We report performance of six different protocols for small RNAseq library preparation and of a method utilizing sequencing of probes targeting microRNAs (HTG EdgeSeq). Recently, small RNA sequencing (small RNA-seq) has been introduced as a method for quantifying circulating microRNAs (miRNAs) and enabling their global profiling without prior knowledge of target sequences. Despite its great promise, small RNA-seq has not delivered the expected outcomes, particularly due to ligation and PCR bias introduced within the workflow. In this study, we assessed the performance of all existing approaches to the small RNA-seq of miRNAs in plasma samples: original two adapter ligation approach; single adapter ligation with subsequent circularization; polyadenylation; use of randomized adapters; and use of unique molecular identifiers (UMI). Using comprehensive set of metrics, we evaluated each protocol in terms of yield, precision, accuracy, sensitivity, and ability to detect isomiRs. Moreover, we assessed performance of targeted RNA-seq method utilizing hybridization probes across relevant metrics and together with RT-qPCR we used it as a reference for accuracy evaluation. The best results were delivered by targeted RNA-seq outperforming other methods in all relevant parameters. The protocols using randomized adapters or UMIs showed consistent good performance across all of the assessed metrics. In contrast, the polyadenylation approach generated a high percentage of discarded reads and impeded the analysis of isomiRs. The single adapter ligation with subsequent circularization failed to prevent ligation bias and the traditional two adapter ligation approach achieved the worse scores in the majority of tested metrics. To sum, we provide a comprehensive comparison that can serve as a guide for new users interested in analysis of circulating miRNAs and as a reference for further comparative studies.