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Zachary, Kimon

In this retrospective cohort study, we demonstrate that PCR-confirmed diagnoses of influenza were made solely by lower respiratory sampling in 6.9% of cases, as traditional upper respiratory tract tests were negative, indeterminate or not performed. Clinical features of these cases are presented. Clinicians should consider lower respiratory tract sampling in select cases of influenza-like illness for diagnosis.

The Wnt protein Wingless (Wg) functions as a signal in patterning of both the Drosophila embryo and imaginal discs. Lack of porcupine (porc) activity is associated with mutant phenotypes similar to those of wg mutations. In porc mutant embryos, Wg protein is confined to the cells that produce it, suggesting that Porc plays a role in processing or secretion of Wg. porc encodes a novel transmembrane protein that appears to be concentrated at the endoplasmic reticulum. We present both genetic and in vitro evidence demonstrating that porc is involved specifically in the processing of Wg. We identified a human sequence related to Porc suggesting the existence of a family of proteins involved in processing of Wnts.

The global spread and continued evolution of SARS-CoV-2 has driven an unprecedented surge in viral genomic surveillance. Amplicon-based sequencing methods provide a sensitive, low-cost and rapid approach but suffer a high potential for contamination, which can undermine laboratory processes and results. This challenge will only increase with expanding global production of sequences by diverse laboratories for epidemiological and clinical interpretation, as well in genomic surveillance in future outbreaks. We present SDSI+AmpSeq, an approach which uses synthetic DNA spike-ins (SDSIs) to track samples and detect inter-sample contamination through the sequencing workflow. Applying SDSIs to the ARTIC Consortium’s amplicon design, we demonstrate their utility and efficiency in a real-time investigation of a suspected hospital cluster of SARS-CoV-2 cases and across thousands of diagnostic samples at multiple laboratories. We establish that SDSI+AmpSeq provides increased confidence in genomic data by detecting and in some cases correcting for relatively common, yet previously unobserved modes of error without impacting genome recovery.