Recent advances in sequencing technologies have transformed the field of virus discovery and virome analysis. Once, mostly confined to the traditional Sanger sequencing based individual virus discovery, is now entirely replaced by high throughput sequencing (HTS) based virus metagenomics that can be used to characterize the nature and composition of entire viromes. To better harness the potential of HTS for study of viromes, sample preparation methodologies used different refinements to exclude amplification of non-viral components that can overshadow low-titer viruses. These virus-sequence enrichment approaches mostly focused on the sample preparation methods, like enzymatic digestion of non-viral nucleic acids and size exclusion of non-viral constituents by column filtration, ultrafiltration or density centrifugation. However, recently an approach of virus-sequence enrichment called virome-capture sequencing, focused on the amplification or HTS library preparation stage, was shown to increase the ability of virome characterization. This new approach has the potential to further transform the field of virus discovery and virome analysis, but its technical complexity and sequence-dependence warrants further improvements. In this review we have listed the different methods, their applications and evolution, for selective sequencing based virome analysis and also the major refinements needed to harness the full potential of HTS for virome analysis.
Evolution Of Selective-Sequencing Approaches For Virus Discovery And Virome Analysis