Irish Coronavirus Sequencing Consortium
The Irish Coronavirus Sequencing Consortium is funded by Science Foundation Ireland and led by Professor Paul Cotter from Teagasc Moorepark. The aim of the project is to sequence or “read” the genetic information of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. This will allow us to track the spread of the virus and any changes in its genetic sequence which may affect the disease or treatment.
Summary
The SARS-CoV-2 virus contains genetic information that can change over time. If we can track those changes, we can map how the virus spreads across regions. This can support efforts to respond to clusters of infections as they arise and minimise the spread of the virus. Collecting the sequences of the viruses in Ireland will also mean we can pick up on important new changes that could affect the ability of the virus to cause disease or to evade treatments or vaccines.
What will the research project do?
Science Foundation Ireland has funded a national consortium led by the Teagasc/APC Microbiome Ireland Sequencing Centre at Moorepark working alongside partners at Teagasc research centres at Grange and Oak Park, University College Cork, Cork University Hospital, the National Virus Reference Laboratory, University College Dublin, University Hospital Limerick, Beaumont hospital, Trinity College Dublin, NUI Galway and NUI Maynooth. Two private companies, Genuity Ireland and Helixworks are also supporting the initiative. This consortium will sequence the RNA of viruses isolated from samples of patients who have lab-confirmed infections of COVID-19 and make the sequence information freely available for analysis.
The consortium will specifically select the virus sequences from the patient samples, and detect those tiny fragments through the use of the latest sequencing technology from Oxford Nanopore. The sequences of the DNA fragments are “read” as changes in current when they pass through pores in the instrumentation. These fragments are assembled, like a jigsaw, using specific computing programmes to generate the full picture of the sequence of the virus, or genome. This genome can then be compared to samples sequenced from Ireland an internationally to track the spread of the virus and investigate the mutation rate as it spreads around the globe.
Dr. Fiona Crispie, researcher at Teagasc Moorepark, loading samples on the Oxford Nanopore MinION
Participant Information
Ethical approval for the project was provided by the National Research Ethics Committee, and a waiver for the use of previously collected patient samples was provided by the Health Research Consent Declaration Committee. If you would like to know more about how patient samples are used in the project, and how we have protected patient anonymity please read our Patient Information Documents:
Patient Information Leaflet (Prospective Patients) [pdf]
Patient Information Leaflet (Retrospective Patients) [pdf]
Publications
April 2021 Eurosurveillance: Characteristics of SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern B.1.1.7, B.1.351 or P.1: data from seven EU/EEA countries, weeks 38/2020 to 10/2021
February 2021 medRxiv: Whole-genome sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 in the Republic of Ireland during waves 1 and 2 of the pandemic
News and Events
26 November 2021 Video featuring Prof Paul Cotter, Dr Fiona Crispie and Dr John Kenny: Irish Coronavirus Sequencing Consortium
22 January 2021 Agriland: Teagasc’s role in fighting Covid-19: Samples, sequencing and making sense of the situation
7th October 2020 Public Webinar: "The Irish Coronavirus Sequencing Consortium: What We're Doing and Why?". The full webinar can be viewed on YouTube and the Q and A can be downloaded as a pdf [ICSC webinar Q and A].
30th July 2020 Irish Examiner: "Covid-19: Teagasc to do DNA sequencing to identify strains of the virus found here"
29th April 2020 Teagasc Press Release: "Irish Coronavirus Sequencing Consortium- Tracking the genetics of the Covid-19 virus in Ireland"