TRACS Enables Strain-Level Tracking of Microbial Transmission

TRACS Enables Strain-Level Tracking of Microbial Transmission

Tracking microbes is challenging, particularly when there are coexisting strains of the same species within metagenomic data. However, overcoming that challenge is important for inferring transmission of both pathogenic and commensal microbes. A new tool, called TRAnsmision Clustering of Strains (TRACS), distinguishes between closely related bacterial strains. The “highly accurate algorithm” can be used for “estimating genetic distances between …

Genomic Tool TRACS Improves Tracking of Microbial Transmission Patterns

The research, published today (24 April) in Nature Microbiology, describes how the new tool, called TRAnsmision Clustering of Strains (TRACS), uses genomics to distinguish between closely related bacterial strains.