Bioinformatic approaches to draft the viral genome sequence of Canary Islands cases related to the multi-country Monkeypox virus 2022-outbreak

During May 2022, the World Health Organization declared community transmission of monkeypox (MPXV) due to a multi-country outbreak. In Europe, several cases of this outbreak were detected in the Canary Islands (Spain). Here we describe the combination of DNA sequencing and bioinformatic approaches, including methods for de novo genome assembly and short- and long-read technologies, used to reconstruct the first MPXV genome isolated in the Canary Islands on the 31st of May 2022 from a male adult patient with mild symptoms. We obtained the best results using a reference-based approach with short reads, evidencing 46-67 nucleotide variants against sequences from the 2018-2019 outbreak, and placing the sequence in the B.1 clade. This study demonstrates the potential of metagenomics sequencing for rapid and precise pathogen identification. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. ### Funding Statement This study has been funded by Cabildo Insular de Tenerife (CGIEU0000219140 and "Apuestas cientificas del ITER para colaborar en la lucha contra la COVID-19"), Instituto de Salud Carlos III (FI18/00230) cofunded by European Union (ERDF) "A way of making Europe", by the agreement with Instituto Tecnologico y de Energias Renovables (ITER) to strengthen scientific and technological education, training, research, development and innovation in Genomics, Personalized Medicine and Biotechnology (OA17/008); by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC/HERA/2021/024 ECD.12241); and Convenio Marco de Cooperacion Consejeria de Educacion-Cabildo Insular de Tenerife 2021-2025 (CGIAC0000014697). ### Author Declarations I confirm all relevant ethical guidelines have been followed, and any necessary IRB and/or ethics committee approvals have been obtained. Yes The details of the IRB/oversight body that provided approval or exemption for the research described are given below: The study was conducted at the University Hospital Nuestra Señora de Candelaria (Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain) during May 2022. The institutional review board approved the study (ethics approval number: CHUNSC\_2022\_83). I confirm that all necessary patient/participant consent has been obtained and the appropriate institutional forms have been archived, and that any patient/participant/sample identifiers included were not known to anyone (e.g., hospital staff, patients or participants themselves) outside the research group so cannot be used to identify individuals. Yes I understand that all clinical trials and any other prospective interventional studies must be registered with an ICMJE-approved registry, such as ClinicalTrials.gov. I confirm that any such study reported in the manuscript has been registered and the trial registration ID is provided (note: if posting a prospective study registered retrospectively, please provide a statement in the trial ID field explaining why the study was not registered in advance). Yes I have followed all appropriate research reporting guidelines and uploaded the relevant EQUATOR Network research reporting checklist(s) and other pertinent material as supplementary files, if applicable. Yes The code used for this study is available at . The Illumina-only and the hybrid de novo assembly consensus MPXV sequences have been released in the NCBI GenBank with accessions [ON782054][1] and [ON782055][2], respectively. [1]: /lookup/external-ref?link_type=GEN&access_num=ON782054&atom=%2Fmedrxiv%2Fearly%2F2022%2F11%2F13%2F2022.11.08.22282035.atom [2]: /lookup/external-ref?link_type=GEN&access_num=ON782055&atom=%2Fmedrxiv%2Fearly%2F2022%2F11%2F13%2F2022.11.08.22282035.atom