SnackNTM: An Open-Source Software for Sanger Sequencing-based Identification of Nontuberculous Mycobacterial Species.BACKGROUND
 We developed a simple and fully automated software that enabled species-level identification of NTM from trace files, SnackNTM (https://github.com/Young-gonKim/SnackNTM).


 The SnackNTM diagnostic algorithm utilized 16S rRNA gene sequences, according to the Clinical & Laboratory Standards Institute guidelines, and an rpoB gene region was adjunctively utilized to narrow down the species.  SnackNTM could analyze multiple cases at once, and all the bioinformatics processes required for sequence-based NTM identification were automatically performed with a single mouse click.  SnackNTM successfully identified 95.9% (208/217) of consecutive clinical cases, and the results showed 99.0% (206/208) agreement with manual classification results.  SnackNTM successfully identified all 17 cases of unique species.  In a processing time comparison test, the analysis and reporting of 30 cases, which took 150 minutes manually, took only 40 minutes with SnackNTM.


 SnackNTM is expected to reduce the workload for NTM identification, especially in clinical laboratories that process large numbers of cases.
SnackNTM