Test development, optimization and validation of a WGS pipeline for genetic disorders

Ziying Yang, Xu Yang, Yan Sun, Yaoshen Wang, Lijie Song, Zhihong Qiao, Zhonghai Fang, Zhonghua Wang, Lipei Liu, Yunmei Chen, Saiying Yan, Xueqin Guo, Junqing Zhang, Chunna Fan, Fengxia Liu, Zhiyu Peng, Huanhuan Peng, Jun Sun*, Wei Chen*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

99 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Background With advances in massive parallel sequencing (MPS) technology, whole-genome sequencing (WGS) has gradually evolved into the first-tier diagnostic test for genetic disorders. However, deployment practice and pipeline testing for clinical WGS are lacking.
Methods
In this study, we introduced a whole WGS pipeline for genetic disorders, which included the entire process from obtaining a sample to clinical reporting. All samples that underwent WGS were constructed using polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-free library preparation protocols and sequenced on the MGISEQ-2000 platform. Bioinformatics pipelines were developed for the simultaneous detection of various types of variants, including single nucleotide variants (SNVs), insertions and deletions (indels), copy number variants (CNVs) and balanced rearrangements, mitochondrial (MT) variants, and other complex variants such as repeat expansion, pseudogenes and absence of heterozygosity (AOH). A semiautomatic pipeline was developed for the interpretation of potential SNVs and CNVs. Forty-five samples (including 14 positive commercially available samples, 23 laboratory-held positive cell lines and 8 clinical cases) with known variants were used to validate the whole pipeline.
Results In this study, a whole WGS pipeline for genetic disorders was developed and optimized. Forty-five samples with known variants (6 with SNVs and Indels, 3 with MT variants, 5 with aneuploidies, 1 with triploidy, 23 with CNVs, 5 with balanced rearrangements, 2 with repeat expansions, 1 with AOHs, and 1 with exon 7-8 deletion of SMN1 gene) validated the effectiveness of our pipeline.
Conclusions This study has been piloted in test development, optimization, and validation of the WGS pipeline for genetic disorders. A set of best practices were recommended using our pipeline, along with a dataset of positive samples for benchmarking.
Original languageEnglish
Article number74
JournalBMC Medical Genomics
Volume16
Number of pages11
ISSN1755-8794
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2023

Keywords

  • Whole genome sequencing
  • Genetic disorders
  • Clinical diagnosis
  • Bioinformatics pipelines

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Test development, optimization and validation of a WGS pipeline for genetic disorders'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this