Perspectives of molecular barcoding for virus research
Undoubtedly, molecular barcodes should strengthen their power in the
context of molecule quantification. Together with precise instruments,
such as the microfluidic system to delicately detect individual
molecules and deep learning algorithms, dedicated to accurately
interpret, calculate and classify each sequence of barcodes, we can
foresee that molecular barcodes will continue to be one of the most
attractive methods applied for quantitative biology. Additional
advantage of the molecular barcoding approach is that we will be able to
track any intermediate product relevant to the origin of genomic DNA,
such as RNA isoforms and antisense RNA or the functional unit which is
absent following mRNA processing; few examples have already shown the
feasibility of molecular barcoding for tackling these
questions[28,158,159].
Furthermore, no matter barcoding DNA- or RNA viruses, molecular barcodes
are presently embedded in genomic DNA or cDNA. However welcome, it is
known that many zoonotic viruses causing EIDs belong to RNA viruses.
Direct barcoding and sequencing native viral RNA molecules without
conversion to cDNA will be expected to bring us a more informative
picture concerning chemical RNA modifications present in the native RNA
molecules and the whole transcriptome. Example given by Smith and
colleagues[160]demonstrated the potential for barcoding directly on native RNA
molecules by using the platform offered by Oxford Nanopore Technologies.