The Australian Biosecurity Genomic Database: a new resource for high-throughput sequencing analysis based on the National Notifiable Disease List of Terrestrial Animals

The Australian Biosecurity Genomic Database (ABGD) is a curated collection of reference viral genome sequences based on the Australian National Notifiable Disease List of Terrestrial Animals. It was created to facilitate the screening of high-throughput sequencing (HTS) data for the potential presence of viruses associated with notifiable disease. The database includes a single verified sequence (the exemplar species sequence, where relevant) for each of the 60 virus species across 21 viral families that are associated with or cause these notifiable diseases, as recognized by the World Organisation for Animal Health. The open-source ABGD on GitHub provides usage guidance documents and is intended to support building a culture in Australian HTS communities that promotes the use of quality-assured, standardized, and verified databases for Australia's national biosecurity interests. Future expansion of the database will include the addition of more strains or subtypes for highly variable viruses, viruses causing diseases of aquatic animals, and genomes of other types of pathogens associated with notifiable diseases, such as bacteria. Database URL: https://github.com/ausbiopathgenDB/AustralianBiosecurityGenomicDatabase.