METHOD OF DECONVOLUTION OF MIXED MOLECULAR INFORMATION IN A COMPLEX SAMPLE TO IDENTIFY ORGANISM(S)

摘要

The present invention relates to methods to determine the identity of one or more organisms present in a sample (if these are already reported in a taxonomic database) or the identity of the closest related organism reported in a taxonomic database. The present invention does this by comparing a data set acquired by analysing at least one component of the biological sample to a database, so as to match each component of the analysed content of the sample to one or more taxon(s) and then collating the phylogenetic distance between each taxa and the taxon with the highest number of matches in the data set. A deconvolution function is then generated for the taxon with the highest number of matches, based on a correlation curve between the number of matches per taxon (Y axis) and said phylogenetic distance (X axis), the outcome of this function providing the identity of the organism or the closest known organism to it.