Evidence map›Paper›PMID 37002219›Full record

ArticleNature communications2023

Genome-wide tiled detection of circulating Mycobacterium tuberculosis cell-free DNA using Cas13.

Sri Gowtham Thakku, Jackson Lirette, Kanagavel Murugesan, Julie Chen, Grant Theron, Niaz Banaei, Paul C Blainey, James Gomez, Sharon Y Wong, Deborah T Hung

Open access · goldAbstract read
PubMed Full text at PMC Publisher
In one paragraph

Article in Nature communications, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 29 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
29citing papers in PubMed, 2 pooled it
10.8field-weighted citation impact, top 1% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

29 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 45 citations in OpenAlex.

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  16. Rapid and sensitive detection ofMicrobiology spectrum · 2025
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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

10 authors at 4 institutions in 2 countries.

Sri Gowtham ThakkuBroad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA.
Jackson LiretteBroad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA.
Kanagavel MurugesanDepartment of Pathology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA.
Julie ChenBroad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA.ORCID 0000-0003-4648-7478
Grant TheronDSI-NRF Centre of Excellence for Biomedical Tuberculosis Research and SAMRC Centre for Tuberculosis Research, Division of Molecular Biology and Human Genetics, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Stellenbosch University, Cape Town, South Africa.ORCID 0000-0002-9216-2415
Niaz BanaeiDepartment of Pathology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA.
Paul C BlaineyBroad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA.ORCID 0000-0002-4889-8783
James GomezBroad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA.
Sharon Y WongBroad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA.
Deborah T HungBroad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA. dhung@broadinstitute.org.
Broad Institute · USSouth African Medical Research Council · ZAStanford Health Care · USStanford University · US

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Detection of microbial cell-free DNA (cfDNA) circulating in the bloodstream has emerged as a promising new approach for diagnosing infection. Microbial diagnostics based on cfDNA require assays that can detect rare and highly fragmented pathogen nucleic acids. We now report WATSON (Whole-genome Assay using Tiled Surveillance Of Nucleic acids), a method to detect low amounts of pathogen cfDNA that couples pooled amplification of genomic targets tiled across the genome with pooled CRISPR/Cas13-based detection of these targets. We demonstrate that this strategy of tiling improves cfDNA detection compared to amplification and detection of a single targeted locus. WATSON can detect cfDNA from Mycobacterium tuberculosis in plasma of patients with active pulmonary tuberculosis, a disease that urgently needs accurate, minimally-invasive, field-deployable diagnostics. We thus demonstrate the potential for translating WATSON to a lateral flow platform. WATSON demonstrates the ability to capitalize on the strengths of targeting microbial cfDNA to address the need for point-of-care diagnostic tests for infectious diseases.

Indexed as

Mycobacterium tuberculosisCell-Free SystemCRISPR-Cas SystemsDNA, BacterialGenome, BacterialHumansTuberculosisDNA, Bacterial

Identifiers

PMID37002219
PMCPMC10064635
OpenAlexW4362471232

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.