scholarly journals Chromosome-level hybrid de novo genome assemblies as an attainable option for non-model organisms

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Coline C. Jaworski ◽  
Carson W. Allan ◽  
Luciano M. Matzkin
Keyword(s):  
Genome Assembly ◽  
De Novo ◽  
Model Organism ◽  
Model Organisms ◽  
Sequencing Error ◽  
Long Reads ◽  
Hybrid Genome ◽  
Genome Assemblies ◽  
Hybrid Assemblies ◽  
Chromosome Level

AbstractThe emergence of third generation sequencing (3GS; long-reads) is making closer the goal of chromosome-size fragments in de novo genome assemblies. This allows the exploration of new and broader questions on genome evolution for a number of non-model organisms. However, long-read technologies result in higher sequencing error rates and therefore impose an elevated cost of sufficient coverage to achieve high enough quality. In this context, hybrid assemblies, combining short-reads and long-reads provide an alternative efficient and cost-effective approach to generate de novo, chromosome-level genome assemblies. The array of available software programs for hybrid genome assembly, sequence correction and manipulation is constantly being expanded and improved. This makes it difficult for non-experts to find efficient, fast and tractable computational solutions for genome assembly, especially in the case of non-model organisms lacking a reference genome or one from a closely related species. In this study, we review and test the most recent pipelines for hybrid assemblies, comparing the model organism Drosophila melanogaster to a non-model cactophilic Drosophila, D. mojavensis. We show that it is possible to achieve excellent contiguity on this non-model organism using the DBG2OLC pipeline.

scholarly journals Overcoming uncollapsed haplotypes in long-read assemblies of non-model organisms

2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nadège Guiglielmoni ◽  
Antoine Houtain ◽  
Alessandro Derzelle ◽  
Karine Van Doninck ◽  
Jean-François Flot
Keyword(s):  
Genome Assembly ◽  
Model Organism ◽  
Model Organisms ◽  
Post Processing ◽  
Diploid Genome ◽  
Long Reads ◽  
Long Read ◽  
Eukaryote Genome ◽  
Chromosome Level

Abstract Background Long-read sequencing is revolutionizing genome assembly: as PacBio and Nanopore technologies become more accessible in technicity and in cost, long-read assemblers flourish and are starting to deliver chromosome-level assemblies. However, these long reads are usually error-prone, making the generation of a haploid reference out of a diploid genome a difficult enterprise. Failure to properly collapse haplotypes results in fragmented and structurally incorrect assemblies and wreaks havoc on orthology inference pipelines, yet this serious issue is rarely acknowledged and dealt with in genomic projects, and an independent, comparative benchmark of the capacity of assemblers and post-processing tools to properly collapse or purge haplotypes is still lacking. Results We tested different assembly strategies on the genome of the rotifer Adineta vaga, a non-model organism for which high coverages of both PacBio and Nanopore reads were available. The assemblers we tested (Canu, Flye, NextDenovo, Ra, Raven, Shasta and wtdbg2) exhibited strikingly different behaviors when dealing with highly heterozygous regions, resulting in variable amounts of uncollapsed haplotypes. Filtering reads generally improved haploid assemblies, and we also benchmarked three post-processing tools aimed at detecting and purging uncollapsed haplotypes in long-read assemblies: HaploMerger2, purge_haplotigs and purge_dups. Conclusions We provide a thorough evaluation of popular assemblers on a non-model eukaryote genome with variable levels of heterozygosity. Our study highlights several strategies using pre and post-processing approaches to generate haploid assemblies with high continuity and completeness. This benchmark will help users to improve haploid assemblies of non-model organisms, and evaluate the quality of their own assemblies.

scholarly journals LongStitch: High-quality genome assembly correction and scaffolding using long reads

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lauren Coombe ◽  
Janet X Li ◽  
Theodora Lo ◽  
Johnathan Wong ◽  
Vladimir Nikolic ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Genome Assembly ◽  
De Novo ◽  
Draft Genome ◽  
Model Organisms ◽  
High Quality ◽  
De Novo Genome Assembly ◽  
Long Reads ◽  
Long Read ◽  
Genomic Regions ◽  
Genome Assemblies

Background Generating high-quality de novo genome assemblies is foundational to the genomics study of model and non-model organisms. In recent years, long-read sequencing has greatly benefited genome assembly and scaffolding, a process by which assembled sequences are ordered and oriented through the use of long-range information. Long reads are better able to span repetitive genomic regions compared to short reads, and thus have tremendous utility for resolving problematic regions and helping generate more complete draft assemblies. Here, we present LongStitch, a scalable pipeline that corrects and scaffolds draft genome assemblies exclusively using long reads. Results LongStitch incorporates multiple tools developed by our group and runs in up to three stages, which includes initial assembly correction (Tigmint-long), followed by two incremental scaffolding stages (ntLink and ARKS-long). Tigmint-long and ARKS-long are misassembly correction and scaffolding utilities, respectively, previously developed for linked reads, that we adapted for long reads. Here, we describe the LongStitch pipeline and introduce our new long-read scaffolder, ntLink, which utilizes lightweight minimizer mappings to join contigs. LongStitch was tested on short and long-read assemblies of three different human individuals using corresponding nanopore long-read data, and improves the contiguity of each assembly from 2.0-fold up to 304.6-fold (as measured by NGA50 length). Furthermore, LongStitch generates more contiguous and correct assemblies compared to state-of-the-art long-read scaffolder LRScaf in most tests, and consistently runs in under five hours using less than 23GB of RAM. Conclusions Due to its effectiveness and efficiency in improving draft assemblies using long reads, we expect LongStitch to benefit a wide variety of de novo genome assembly projects. The LongStitch pipeline is freely available at https://github.com/bcgsc/longstitch.

scholarly journals LongStitch: high-quality genome assembly correction and scaffolding using long reads

2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lauren Coombe ◽  
Janet X. Li ◽  
Theodora Lo ◽  
Johnathan Wong ◽  
Vladimir Nikolic ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Genome Assembly ◽  
De Novo ◽  
Draft Genome ◽  
Model Organisms ◽  
High Quality ◽  
De Novo Genome Assembly ◽  
Long Reads ◽  
Long Read ◽  
Genomic Regions ◽  
Genome Assemblies

Abstract Background Generating high-quality de novo genome assemblies is foundational to the genomics study of model and non-model organisms. In recent years, long-read sequencing has greatly benefited genome assembly and scaffolding, a process by which assembled sequences are ordered and oriented through the use of long-range information. Long reads are better able to span repetitive genomic regions compared to short reads, and thus have tremendous utility for resolving problematic regions and helping generate more complete draft assemblies. Here, we present LongStitch, a scalable pipeline that corrects and scaffolds draft genome assemblies exclusively using long reads. Results LongStitch incorporates multiple tools developed by our group and runs in up to three stages, which includes initial assembly correction (Tigmint-long), followed by two incremental scaffolding stages (ntLink and ARKS-long). Tigmint-long and ARKS-long are misassembly correction and scaffolding utilities, respectively, previously developed for linked reads, that we adapted for long reads. Here, we describe the LongStitch pipeline and introduce our new long-read scaffolder, ntLink, which utilizes lightweight minimizer mappings to join contigs. LongStitch was tested on short and long-read assemblies of Caenorhabditis elegans, Oryza sativa, and three different human individuals using corresponding nanopore long-read data, and improves the contiguity of each assembly from 1.2-fold up to 304.6-fold (as measured by NGA50 length). Furthermore, LongStitch generates more contiguous and correct assemblies compared to state-of-the-art long-read scaffolder LRScaf in most tests, and consistently improves upon human assemblies in under five hours using less than 23 GB of RAM. Conclusions Due to its effectiveness and efficiency in improving draft assemblies using long reads, we expect LongStitch to benefit a wide variety of de novo genome assembly projects. The LongStitch pipeline is freely available at https://github.com/bcgsc/longstitch.

scholarly journals Overcoming uncollapsed haplotypes in long-read assemblies of non-model organisms

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nadège Guiglielmoni ◽  
Antoine Houtain ◽  
Alessandro Derzelle ◽  
Karine van Doninck ◽  
Jean-François Flot
Keyword(s):  
Genome Assembly ◽  
Model Organism ◽  
Model Organisms ◽  
Third Generation ◽  
Post Processing ◽  
Third Generation Sequencing ◽  
Long Reads ◽  
Long Read ◽  
Generation Sequencing ◽  
Chromosome Level

Third-generation sequencing, also called long-read sequencing, is revolutionizing genome assembly: as PacBio and Nanopore technologies become more accessible in technicity and in cost, long-read assemblers flourish and are starting to deliver chromosome-level assemblies. However, these long reads are also error-prone, making the generation of a haploid reference out of a diploid genome a difficult enterprise. Although failure to properly collapse haplotypes results in fragmented and/or structurally incorrect assemblies and wreaks havoc on orthology inference pipelines, this serious issue is rarely acknowledged and dealt with in genomic projects, and an independent, comparative benchmark of the capacity of assemblers and post-processing tools to properly collapse or purge haplotypes is still lacking. To fill this gap, we tested different assembly strategies on the genome of the rotifer Adineta vaga, a non-model organism for which high coverages of both PacBio and Nanopore reads were available. The assemblers we tested (Canu, Flye, NextDenovo, Ra, Raven, Shasta and wtdbg2) exhibited strikingly different behaviors when dealing with highly heterozygous regions, resulting in variable amounts of uncollapsed haplotypes. Filtering out shorter reads generally improved haploid assemblies, and we also benchmarked three post-processing tools aimed at detecting and purging uncollapsed haplotypes in long-read assemblies: HaploMerger2, purge_haplotigs and purge_dups. Testing these strategies separately and in combination revealed several approaches able to generate haploid assemblies with genome sizes, coverage distributions, and completeness close to expectations.

scholarly journals Identifying the causes and consequences of assembly gaps using a multiplatform genome assembly of a bird-of-paradise

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valentina Peona ◽  
Mozes P.K. Blom ◽  
Luohao Xu ◽  
Reto Burri ◽  
Shawn Sullivan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Dark Matter ◽  
Genome Assembly ◽  
Sex Chromosome ◽  
De Novo ◽  
Model Organism ◽  
Technology Choice ◽  
High Quality ◽  
Sequencing Technologies ◽  
Downstream Analysis ◽  
Genome Assemblies

AbstractGenome assemblies are currently being produced at an impressive rate by consortia and individual laboratories. The low costs and increasing efficiency of sequencing technologies have opened up a whole new world of genomic biodiversity. Although these technologies generate high-quality genome assemblies, there are still genomic regions difficult to assemble, like repetitive elements and GC-rich regions (genomic “dark matter”). In this study, we compare the efficiency of currently used sequencing technologies (short/linked/long reads and proximity ligation maps) and combinations thereof in assembling genomic dark matter starting from the same sample. By adopting different de-novo assembly strategies, we were able to compare each individual draft assembly to a curated multiplatform one and identify the nature of the previously missing dark matter with a particular focus on transposable elements, multi-copy MHC genes, and GC-rich regions. Thanks to this multiplatform approach, we demonstrate the feasibility of producing a high-quality chromosome-level assembly for a non-model organism (paradise crow) for which only suboptimal samples are available. Our approach was able to reconstruct complex chromosomes like the repeat-rich W sex chromosome and several GC-rich microchromosomes. Telomere-to-telomere assemblies are not a reality yet for most organisms, but by leveraging technology choice it is possible to minimize genome assembly gaps for downstream analysis. We provide a roadmap to tailor sequencing projects around the completeness of both the coding and non-coding parts of the genomes.

scholarly journals Pushing the limits of de novo genome assembly for complex prokaryotic genomes harboring very long, near identical repeats

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Schmid ◽  
Daniel Frei ◽  
Andrea Patrignani ◽  
Ralph Schlapbach ◽  
Jürg E. Frey ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Dark Matter ◽  
Genome Assembly ◽  
De Novo ◽  
Bacterial Genomes ◽  
De Novo Genome Assembly ◽  
Assembly Algorithm ◽  
Long Reads ◽  
Oxford Nanopore ◽  
Prokaryotic Genomes ◽  
Genome Assemblies

AbstractGenerating a complete, de novo genome assembly for prokaryotes is often considered a solved problem. However, we here show that Pseudomonas koreensis P19E3 harbors multiple, near identical repeat pairs up to 70 kilobase pairs in length. Beyond long repeats, the P19E3 assembly was further complicated by a shufflon region. Its complex genome could not be de novo assembled with long reads produced by Pacific Biosciences’ technology, but required very long reads from the Oxford Nanopore Technology. Another important factor for a full genomic resolution was the choice of assembly algorithm.Importantly, a repeat analysis indicated that very complex bacterial genomes represent a general phenomenon beyond Pseudomonas. Roughly 10% of 9331 complete bacterial and a handful of 293 complete archaeal genomes represented this dark matter for de novo genome assembly of prokaryotes. Several of these dark matter genome assemblies contained repeats far beyond the resolution of the sequencing technology employed and likely contain errors, other genomes were closed employing labor-intense steps like cosmid libraries, primer walking or optical mapping. Using very long sequencing reads in combination with assemblers capable of resolving long, near identical repeats will bring most prokaryotic genomes within reach of fast and complete de novo genome assembly.

scholarly journals A chromosome-level genome assembly of the Chinese tupelo Nyssa sinensis

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Xuchen Yang ◽  
Minghui Kang ◽  
Yanting Yang ◽  
Haifeng Xiong ◽  
Mingcheng Wang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Single Molecule ◽  
Genome Assembly ◽  
De Novo ◽  
Chromosome Conformation ◽  
Protein Coding ◽  
Single Molecule Sequencing ◽  
Data Matching ◽  
Long Reads ◽  
Autumn Leaf ◽  
Chromosome Level

AbstractThe deciduous Chinese tupelo (Nyssa sinensis Oliv.) is a popular ornamental tree for the spectacular autumn leaf color. Here, using single-molecule sequencing and chromosome conformation capture data, we report a high-quality, chromosome-level genome assembly of N. sinensis. PacBio long reads were de novo assembled into 647 polished contigs with a total length of 1,001.42 megabases (Mb) and an N50 size of 3.62 Mb, which is in line with genome sizes estimated using flow cytometry and the k-mer analysis. These contigs were further clustered and ordered into 22 pseudo-chromosomes based on Hi-C data, matching the chromosome counts in Nyssa obtained from previous cytological studies. In addition, a total of 664.91 Mb of repetitive elements were identified and a total of 37,884 protein-coding genes were predicted in the genome of N. sinensis. All data were deposited in publicly available repositories, and should be a valuable resource for genomics, evolution, and conservation biology.

scholarly journals GABOLA: A Reliable Gap-Filling Strategy for de novo Chromosome-Level Assembly

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wei-Hsuan Chuang ◽  
Hsueh-Chien Cheng ◽  
Yu-Jung Chang ◽  
Pao-Yin Fu ◽  
Yi-Chen Huang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
De Novo ◽  
Model Organism ◽  
Disease Diagnosis ◽  
Whole Genome ◽  
Base Pairs ◽  
Repeat Sequences ◽  
Link Type ◽  
Long Reads ◽  
Novel Method ◽  
Genome Assemblies

AbstractWe propose a novel method, GABOLA, which utilizes long-range genomic information provided by accurate linked short reads jointly with long reads to improve the integrity and resolution of whole genome assemblies especially in complex genetic regions. We validated GABOLA on human and Japanese eel genomes. On the two human samples, we filled in more bases spanning 23.3Mbp and 46.2Mbp than Supernova assembler, covering over 3,200 functional genes which includes 8,500 exons and 15,000 transcripts. Among them, multiple genes related to various types of cancer were identified. Moreover, we discovered additional 11,031,487 base pairs of repeat sequences and 218 exclusive repeat patterns, some of which are known to be linked to several disorders such as neuron degenerative diseases. As for the eel genome, we successfully raised the genetic benchmarking score to 94.6% while adding 24.7 million base pairs. These results manifest the capability of GABOLA in the optimization of whole genome assembly and the potential in precise disease diagnosis and high-quality non-model organism breeding.Availability: The docker image and source code of GABOLA assembler are available at https://hub.docker.com/r/lsbnb/gabola and https://github.com/lsbnb/gabola respectively.

scholarly journals Chromosome‐level de novo genome assembly of Telopea speciosissima (New South Wales waratah) using long‐reads, linked‐reads and Hi‐C

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephanie H. Chen ◽  
Maurizio Rossetto ◽  
Marlien Merwe ◽  
Patricia Lu‐Irving ◽  
Jia‐Yee S. Yap ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Genome Assembly ◽  
De Novo ◽  
New South ◽  
New South Wales ◽  
De Novo Genome Assembly ◽  
South Wales ◽  
Long Reads ◽  
Chromosome Level

scholarly journals Single-Molecule Real-Time Sequencing Combined with Optical Mapping Yields Completely Finished Fungal Genome

mBio ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Luigi Faino ◽  
Michael F. Seidl ◽  
Erwin Datema ◽  
Grardy C. M. van den Berg ◽  
Antoine Janssen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Next Generation Sequencing ◽  
Genome Sequencing ◽  
Genome Assembly ◽  
Optical Mapping ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Long Reads ◽  
Genome Assemblies ◽  
Next Generation Sequencing Ngs ◽  
Hybrid Assemblies ◽  
Generation Sequencing

ABSTRACT Next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies have increased the scalability, speed, and resolution of genomic sequencing and, thus, have revolutionized genomic studies. However, eukaryotic genome sequencing initiatives typically yield considerably fragmented genome assemblies. Here, we assessed various state-of-the-art sequencing and assembly strategies in order to produce a contiguous and complete eukaryotic genome assembly, focusing on the filamentous fungus Verticillium dahliae. Compared with Illumina-based assemblies of the V. dahliae genome, hybrid assemblies that also include PacBio-generated long reads establish superior contiguity. Intriguingly, provided that sufficient sequence depth is reached, assemblies solely based on PacBio reads outperform hybrid assemblies and even result in fully assembled chromosomes. Furthermore, the addition of optical map data allowed us to produce a gapless and complete V. dahliae genome assembly of the expected eight chromosomes from telomere to telomere. Consequently, we can now study genomic regions that were previously not assembled or poorly assembled, including regions that are populated by repetitive sequences, such as transposons, allowing us to fully appreciate an organism's biological complexity. Our data show that a combination of PacBio-generated long reads and optical mapping can be used to generate complete and gapless assemblies of fungal genomes. IMPORTANCE Studying whole-genome sequences has become an important aspect of biological research. The advent of next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies has nowadays brought genomic science within reach of most research laboratories, including those that study nonmodel organisms. However, most genome sequencing initiatives typically yield (highly) fragmented genome assemblies. Nevertheless, considerable relevant information related to genome structure and evolution is likely hidden in those nonassembled regions. Here, we investigated a diverse set of strategies to obtain gapless genome assemblies, using the genome of a typical ascomycete fungus as the template. Eventually, we were able to show that a combination of PacBio-generated long reads and optical mapping yields a gapless telomere-to-telomere genome assembly, allowing in-depth genome analyses to facilitate functional studies into an organism's biology.

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