AMRScan: A hybrid R and Nextflow toolkit for rapid antimicrobial resistance gene detection from sequencing data
Journal:
arXiv
Published Date:
Jul 10, 2025
Abstract
AMRScan is a hybrid bioinformatics toolkit implemented in both R and
[Nextflow](https://www.nextflow.io/) for the rapid and reproducible detection
of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) genes from next-generation sequencing (NGS)
data. The toolkit enables users to identify AMR gene hits in sequencing reads
by aligning them against reference databases such as CARD using BLAST.
The R implementation provides a concise, script-based approach suitable for
single-sample analysis, teaching, and rapid prototyping. In contrast, the
Nextflow implementation enables reproducible, scalable workflows for
multi-sample batch processing in high-performance computing (HPC) and
containerized environments. It leverages modular pipeline design with support
for automated database setup, quality control, conversion, BLAST alignment, and
results parsing.
AMRScan helps bridge the gap between lightweight exploratory analysis and
production-ready surveillance pipelines, making it suitable for both research
and public health genomics applications.