Plasmodium falciparum selective whole genome amplification (sWGA)

The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) uses selective whole genome amplification (sWGA) to preferentially amplify Plasmodium falciparum DNA isolated from human blood. This step increases the ratio of P. falciparum to human DNA in a given eluate and thus increases the yield of P. falciparum derived reads from next-generation sequencing (NGS). CDC uses a NextSeq1000 instrument for NGS after sWGA for P. falciparum. This approach facilitates a wide-range of analyses, including, but not limited to: drug-resistance surveillance, identification of closely related / identical P. falciparum genomes for outbreak tracing, and identifying the most-likely geographic origin for the source of the infection. CDC has removed all human-derived reads from data uploaded to this BioProject.