NCBI submission protocol for SARS-CoV-2 wastewater data: SRA, BioSample, and BioProject v2

PURPOSE: This method was developed at the FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition for GenomeTrakr’s pandemic response project, monitoring SARS-CoV-2 variants in wastewater​​. Protocols developed for this project cover wastewater collection, concentration, RNA extraction, RT-qPCR, library prep, genome sequencing, quality control checks, and data submission to NCBI. This protocol covers the last step of making your data public at NCBI. Specifically, it provides the steps to establish a new NCBI submission environment for your laboratory, including the creation of new BioProject(s) and submission groups. Once these are step up, the protocol then walks through the process for submitting raw reads to SRA and sample metadata to BioSample through the Submission portal. For new submitters, there's quite a bit of groundwork that needs to be established before a laboratory can start its first data submission. We recommend that one person in the laboratory take a few days to get everything set up in advance of when you expect to do your first data submission. If you need a pipeline for frequent or large volume submissions, follow Step 1 in this protocol to get your NCBI submission environment established, then contact [email protected] to set up an account for submitting through the API. Version updates: V2: minor edits to the BioSample and SRA templates