Lowering the Barriers to Routine Whole-Genome Sequencing of Bacteria in the Clinical Microbiology Laboratory.

Whole-genome sequencing of bacterial isolates is increasingly being used to predict antibacterial susceptibility and resistance. Mason and coauthors describe the phenotypic susceptibility interpretations of more than 1,300 Staphylococcus aureus isolates tested against a dozen antistaphylococcal agents, and they compared these findings to susceptibility predictions made by analyzing whole-genome sequence data (J Clin Microbiol 56:e01815-17, 2018, https://doi.org/10.1128/JCM.01815-17). The genotype-phenotype susceptibility interpretations correlated in 96.3% (2,720/2,825) of resistant findings and 98.8% (11,504/11,639) of susceptible findings. This work by Mason and colleagues is helping to lower the barriers to using whole-genome sequencing of S. aureus in clinical microbiology practice.