Duncan MacCannell

The Viral Sub-Species Classification Workshop, held from 8 to 10 April 2024 at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), addressed scientific and technological challenges in the classification of viruses below the level of species. Co-organized by the Bacterial and Viral Bioinformatics Resource Center (BV-BRC), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), and NIAID, it convened experts in virology, bioinformatics, and public health to discuss topics including tracking the real-time evolution of virus lineages; developing useful and non-stigmatizing nomenclature; supporting global coordination for the development of diagnostics, vaccines, treatments, and public health strategies; and ensuring accurate and timely updates of information. The workshop emphasized the role of a formal viral taxonomy and characterization below the species level, such as clades, genotypes, and lineages. Discussions included systems such as the variants of concern short nomenclature and Pango lineages for respiratory viruses, alongside similar systems for other viral pathogens. Presentations highlighted real-time genomic tracking for timely vaccine updates and addressed challenges in nomenclature systems. Technological advancements and community collaboration were deemed vital. Discussions included high-level descriptions of systems that could be used to track and classify evolving viral lineages; name them using dynamic nomenclature systems; and integrate pathogenic, antigenic, and other phenotypic data with genetic information.

Partnerships and Progress in Pathogen Genomics

As public health laboratories expand their genomic sequencing and bioinformatics capacity for the surveillance of different pathogens, labs must carry out robust validation, training, and optimization of wet- and dry-lab procedures. Achieving these goals for algorithms, pipelines and instruments often requires that lower quality datasets be made available for analysis and comparison alongside those of higher quality. This range of data quality in reference sets can complicate the sharing of sub-optimal datasets that are vital for the community and for the reproducibility of assays. Sharing of useful, but sub-optimal datasets requires careful annotation and documentation of known issues to enable appropriate interpretation, avoid being mistaken for better quality information, and for these data (and their derivatives) to be easily identifiable in repositories. Unfortunately, there are currently no standardized attributes or mechanisms for tagging poor-quality datasets, or datasets generated for a specific purpose, to maximize their utility, searchability, accessibility and reuse. The Public Health Alliance for Genomic Epidemiology (PHA4GE) is an international community of scientists from public health, industry and academia focused on improving the reproducibility, interoperability, portability, and openness of public health bioinformatic software, skills, tools and data. To address the challenges of sharing lower quality datasets, PHA4GE has developed a set of standardized contextual data tags, namely fields and terms, that can be included in public repository submissions as a means of flagging pathogen sequence data with known quality issues, increasing their discoverability. The contextual data tags were developed through consultations with the community including input from the International Nucleotide Sequence Data Collaboration (INSDC), and have been standardized using ontologies - community-based resources for defining the tag properties and the relationships between them. The standardized tags are agnostic to the organism and the sequencing technique used and thus can be applied to data generated from any pathogen using an array of sequencing techniques. The tags can also be applied to synthetic (lab created) data. The list of standardized tags is maintained by PHA4GE and can be found at https://github.com/pha4ge/contextual_data_QC_tags. Definitions, ontology IDs, examples of use, as well as a JSON representation, are provided. The PHA4GE QC tags were tested, and are now implemented, by the FDA’s GenomeTrakr laboratory network as part of its routine submission process for SARS-CoV-2 wastewater surveillance. We hope that these simple, standardized tags will help improve communication regarding quality control in public repositories, in addition to making datasets of variable quality more easily identifiable. Suggestions for additional tags can be submitted to PHA4GE via the New Term Request Form in the GitHub repository. By providing a mechanism for feedback and suggestions, we also expect that the tags will evolve with the needs of the community.

The detection of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) markers directly from genomic or metagenomic data is becoming a standard clinical and public health procedure. This has resulted in the development of a number of different bioinformatic AMR prediction tools. Although many may implement similar principles, these tools differ significantly in their supported inputs, search algorithms, parameterisation, and underlying reference databases. Each of these tools generates a report of detected AMR genes or variants in a distinct, non-standard, format. This presents a huge barrier to the comparison of results and to the modularity of tools for AMR gene prediction within bioinformatic workflows. In collaboration with 17 public health laboratories across 10 countries, the Public Health Alliance for Genomic Epidemiology (PHA4GE) ( https://pha4ge.org ) data structures working group has developed and piloted a standardized output specification for the bioinformatic detection of AMR from microbial genomes. In this report, we discuss hAMRonization, a python package and command-line utility, which implements PHA4GE’s AMR specification to combine the outputs of disparate antimicrobial resistance gene detection tools into a single unified format. hAMRonization can be easily extended and currently supports 18 different tools (both species-agnostic and species-specific) for the detection of genes and/or variants conferring AMR. The harmonized reports are available in tabular form, JSON format or through an interactive HTML file (e.g., https://maguire-lab.github.io/assets/interactive_report_demo.html ) that can be opened within the browser for navigable data exploration. As of 2024-03-07 hAMRonization has been downloaded ∼12,500 times, incorporated into >9 public bioinformatic tools and workflows, and been internally adopted by several national and international public health groups. The hAMRonization tool and underlying specification are open-source and freely available through PyPI, conda and GitHub ( https://github.com/pha4ge/hAMRonization ).

Fast, efficient public health actions require well-organized and coordinated systems that can supply timely and accurate knowledge. Public databases of pathogen genomic data, such as the International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration (INSDC), have become essential tools for efficient public health decisions. However, these international resources began primarily for academic purposes, rather than for surveillance or interventions. Now, queries need to access not only the whole genomes of multiple pathogens but also make connections using robust contextual metadata to identify issues of public health relevance. Databases that over time developed a patchwork of submission formats and requirements need to be consistently organized and coordinated internationally to allow effective searches. To help resolve these issues, we propose a common pathogen data structure called the Pathogen Data Object Model (DOM) that will formalize the minimum pieces of sequence data and contextual data necessary for general public health uses, while recognizing that submitters will likely withhold a wide range of non-public contextual data. Further, we propose contributors use the Pathogen DOM for all pathogen submissions (bacterial, viral, fungal, and parasites), which will simplify data submissions and provide a consistent and transparent data structure for downstream data analyses. We also highlight how improved submission tools can support the Pathogen DOM, offering users additional easy-to-use methods to ensure this structure is followed.

As public health laboratories expand their genomic sequencing and bioinformatics capacity for the surveillance of different pathogens, labs must carry out robust validation, training, and optimization of wet- and dry-lab procedures. Achieving these goals for algorithms, pipelines and instruments often requires that lower-quality datasets be made available for analysis and comparison alongside those of higher-quality. This range of data quality in reference sets can complicate the sharing of sub-optimal datasets that are vital for the community and for the reproducibility of assays. Sharing of useful, but sub-optimal datasets requires careful annotation and documentation of known issues to enable appropriate interpretation, avoid being mistaken for better quality information, and for these data (and their derivatives) to be easily identifiable in repositories. Unfortunately, there are currently no standardized attributes or mechanisms for tagging poor-quality datasets, or datasets generated for a specific purpose, to maximize their utility, searchability, accessibility and reuse. The Public Health Alliance for Genomic Epidemiology (PHA4GE) is an international community of scientists from public health, industry and academia focused on improving the reproducibility, interoperability, portability and openness of public health bioinformatic software, skills, tools and data. To address the challenges of sharing lower quality datasets, PHA4GE has developed a set of standardized contextual data tags, namely fields and terms, that can be included in public repository submissions as a means of flagging pathogen sequence data with known quality issues, increasing their discoverability. The contextual data tags were developed through consultations with the community including input from the International Nucleotide Sequence Data Collaboration (INSDC), and have been standardized using ontologies, community-based resources for defining the tag properties and the relationships between them. The standardized tags are agnostic to the organism and the sequencing technique used and thus can be applied to data generated from any pathogen using an array of sequencing techniques. The list of standardized tags is maintained by PHA4GE and can be found at https://github.com/pha4ge/contextual_data_QC_tags. Definitions, ontology IDs, examples of use, as well as a JSON representation, are provided. The PHA4GE QC tags were tested, and are now implemented, by the FDA’s GenomeTrakr laboratory network as part of its routine submission process for SARS-CoV-2 wastewater surveillance. We hope that these simple, standardized tags will help improve communication regarding quality control in public repositories, in addition to making datasets of variable quality more easily identifiable. Suggestions for additional tags can be submitted to PHA4GE via the New Term Request Form in the GitHub repository. By providing a mechanism for feedback and suggestions, we also expect that the tags will evolve with the needs of the community.

Background: The Public Health Alliance for Genomic Epidemiology (PHA4GE) (https://pha4ge.org) is a global coalition that is actively working to establish consensus standards, document and share best practices, improve the availability of critical bioinformatics tools and resources, and advocate for greater openness, interoperability, accessibility, and reproducibility in public health microbial bioinformatics. In the face of the current pandemic, PHA4GE has identified a need for a fit-for-purpose, open-source SARS-CoV-2 contextual data standard. Results: As such, we have developed a SARS-CoV-2 contextual data specification package based on harmonizable, publicly available community standards. The specification can be implemented via a collection template, as well as an array of protocols and tools to support both the harmonization and submission of sequence data and contextual information to public biorepositories. Conclusions: Well-structured, rich contextual data add value, promote reuse, and enable aggregation and integration of disparate datasets. Adoption of the proposed standard and practices will better enable interoperability between datasets and systems, improve the consistency and utility of generated data, and ultimately facilitate novel insights and discoveries in SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19. The package is now supported by the NCBI’s BioSample database.

This is a SARS-CoV-2 specific protocol that covers the steps needed to submit SARS-CoV-2 consensus sequence to GenBank. If you need a pipeline for frequent or large volume submissions, follow Step 1 in the SARS-CoV-2 NCBI submission protocol: SRA, BioSample, and BioProject to get your NCBI submission environment established, then contact gb-admin@ncbi.nlm.nih.gov to set up an account for submitting through the API. This protocol assumes (and requires) that the user has a BioProject and BioSamples(s) already registered. Complete in order:: 1. Populate your templates first. 2. SARS-CoV-2 NCBI submission protocol: SRA, BioSample, and BioProject Step-by-step instructions for establishing a new NCBI laboratory submission account and for creating and linking a new BioProject to an existing umbrella effort. SARS-CoV-2 raw data submission to SRA (Sequence Read Archive) and metadata to BioSample. Users can modify this protocol to just create a BioSample with no linked raw data. 3. SARS-CoV-2 NCBI consensus submission protocol: GenBank (included protocol) Required: established BioProject and BioSamples Submit SARS-CoV-2 assemblies to NCBI GenBank, linking to existing BioProject, BioSamples, and raw data. Version history: V3: Direct links provided to download metadata templates (instead of hosting duplicate files). minor edits throughout the protocol.

PURPOSE: This is a SARS-CoV-2 specific protocol that covers the steps needed to establish a new NCBI submission environment for your laboratory, including the creation of new BioProject(s) and submission groups. Once these are step up, the protocol then walks through the process for submitting raw reads to SRA and sample metadata to BioSample through the Submission portal. For new submitters, there's quite a bit of groundwork that needs to be established before a laboratory can start its first data submission. We recommend that one person in the laboratory take a few days to get everything set up in advance of when you expect to do your first data submission. If you need a pipeline for frequent or large volume submissions, follow Step 1 in the SARS-CoV-2 NCBI submission protocol: SRA, BioSample, and BioProject to get your NCBI submission environment established, then contact gb-admin@ncbi.nlm.nih.gov to set up an account for submitting through the API. These protocols cover submission using NCBI's Submission Portal web-interface. Complete in order:: 1. Populate your templates first. 2. SARS-CoV-2 NCBI submission protocol: SRA, BioSample, and BioProject (included protocol) Step-by-step instructions for establishing a new NCBI laboratory submission account and for creating and linking a new BioProject to an existing umbrella effort. SARS-CoV-2 raw data submission to SRA (Sequence Read Archive) and metadata to BioSample. Users can modify this protocol to just create a BioSample with no linked raw data. 3. SARS-CoV-2 NCBI consensus submission protocol: GenBank Required: established BioProject and BioSamples Submit SARS-CoV-2 assemblies to NCBI GenBank, linking to existing BioProject, BioSamples, and raw data. Version history: V4: Direct links provided to download metadata templates (instead of hosting duplicate files). Other minor edits throughout the protocol.