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شرطة دبي · DUBAI POLICE
Genome Center
Department of Forensic Science and Criminology
SENTINEL
Metagenomic Surveillance
Instructor copy
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🧫 Profile the community, find the signal, decide the action (group task)

  1. Step 1 — Classify the reads. Unlike single-organism barcoding, this sample is a mixture. Run the reads through classification: each read returns a top hit — a species, a resistance gene, a virus, an ambiguous hit (conserved region, multiple taxa) or no significant hit (novel/degraded).
  2. Step 2 — Read the community & decide. The classified reads build a community profile. Compare it to the baseline (or reference sites). Is something new or rising above threshold? Then choose the finding and the surveillance action.
Key difference from species barcoding: here the answer isn't one organism — it's what is in the whole community, in what proportion, and whether there's a threat. A pathogen at 1% can be an alert; a commensal at 30% can be normal.

STEP 1 Metagenomic classification

Read classification (subset of reads)

In a real run, millions of reads are classified; the community profile below summarises them all.

STEP 2 Community profile & surveillance decision

How to decide:
Compare the sample to the baseline / reference. A taxon that is new or clearly rising above threshold is the signal.
Use the reads to say what it is — a species, a resistance gene, or a virus. Ambiguous (genus-only) hits and lots of no-hit reads are not alerts on their own.
For soil, the community is a fingerprint of place — match it to the most similar reference site.

1) Your group's finding:

2) Your group's surveillance action:

📋 Your group's answers —

Read these to your instructor. Nothing here is graded.

🔑 Answer key — instructor only