Welcome Company Overview Core Principles Board of Directors OpGen Team Investor Relations Terms of Use Privacy

	Overview What Is Optical Mapping? MapSolver™ Comparative Genomics Whole Genome Sequence Assembly Strain Typing Food Microbiology Epidemiology / Food Safety Bibliography

	Careers at OpGen Our Culture Employee Benefits

	Argus™ Optical Mapping System MapIt™ Services - Sample Preparation - Sample Transport - Request a MapIt Quote - Payment + Terms

	Customer Support FAQ Resource Downloads Optical MapDemos

	Press Releases/Media Calendar, Tradeshows & Events

	Corporate Distributor Partners Directions to OpGen, Inc.

Home > Technology > Epidemiology / Food Safety

Technology: Epidemiology & Food Safety

Trace & Link Outbreak Strains to Source

• Compare isolates from multiple locations to confirm/deny same source strain
• Perform map-based similarity clustering to precisely distinguish strains
• Characterize outbreak strains by tracking mobile genetic elements
• Differentiate between hospital and community acquired strains

Optical Maps from Outbreak Isolates are compared to each other to determine strain relatedness. Optical Mapping identified genomic islands in outbreak Isolates 1 and 2 associated with the Field/Source Isolate. A New Isolate is compared and determined not to be associated with the current outbreak as it lacks key markers associated with the Field/Source strain.

 

Discriminate Between Closely Related Strains

• Find and Monitor the emergence of new strains
• Reveal genomic rearrangements, insertions, deletions, and virulence markers

Whole Genome Optical Maps discriminate hospital-acquired (HAI) from community acquired (CA) MRSA strains, revealing the differences between strains, notably SCCmec and PVL motif insertions. Map based similarity clustering describes relatedness between the MRSA strains.

 

Detect Genetically Engineered Strains

• Compare suspect strains to reference strains to reveal modifications
• Compare and analyze strains for microbial forensics and biodefense investigations

Differentiating Technology Advantages

• Pure culture isolates are not required
• ‘Unculturable’ or fastidious microbes can be analyzed
• Easy interpretation is provided through visual analysis
• High coverage maps based on hundreds of markers across the genome ensure accuracy and provide more genomic information than strain typing and alternative methods like 16S or PFGE

 

We recognize that Confidentiality is important to you and we conduct our business accordingly.