Asset Tag: Mosquito

June 1, 2021  |  

Long-read assembly of the Aedes aegypti Aag2 cell line genome resolves ancient endogenous viral elements

Transmission of arboviruses such as Dengue Virus by Aedes aegypti causes debilitating disease across the globe. Disease in humans can include severe acute symptoms such as hemorrhagic fever and organ failure, but mosquitoes tolerate high titers of virus in a persistent infection. The mechanisms responsible for this viral tolerance are unclear. Recent publications highlighted the integration of genetic material from non-retroviral RNA viruses into the genome of the host during infection that relies upon endogenous retro-transcriptase activity from transposons. These endogenous viral elements (EVEs) found in the genome are predicted to be ancient, and at least some EVEs are under purifying selection, suggesting they are beneficial to the host. To characterize EVE biogenesis in a tractable system, we sequenced the Ae. aegypti cell line, Aag2, to 58-fold coverage and present a de novo assembly of the genome. The assembly contains 1.7 Gb of genomic and 255 Mb of alternative haplotype specific sequence, consisting of contigs with a N50 of 1.4 Mb; a value that, when compared with other assemblies of the Aedes genus, is from 1-3 orders of magnitude longer. The Aag2 genome is highly repetitive (70%), most of which is classified as transposable elements (60%). We identify EVEs in the genome homologous to a range of extant viruses, many of which cluster in these regions of repetitive DNA. The contiguous assembly allows for more comprehensive identification of the transposable elements and EVEs that are most likely to be lost in assemblies lacking the read length of SMRT Sequencing.

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June 1, 2021  |  

Long-read assembly of the Aedes aegypti Aag2 cell line genome resolves ancient endogenous viral elements

Transmission of arboviruses such as Dengue and Zika viruses by Aedes aegypti causes widespread and debilitating disease across the globe. Disease in humans can include severe acute symptoms such as hemorrhagic fever, organ failure, and encephalitis; and yet, mosquitoes tolerate high titers of virus in a persistent infection. The mechanisms responsible for tolerance to viral infection in mosquitoes are still unclear. Recent publications have highlighted the integration of genetic material from non-retroviral RNA viruses into the genome of the host during infection that relies upon endogenous retro-transcriptase activity from transposons. These endogenous viral elements (EVEs) found in the genome are predicted to be ancient and at least some EVEs are under purifying selection, which suggests that they are beneficial to the host. In order characterize EVE biogenesis in a tractable system we sequenced the Ae. aegypti cell line, Aag2, to 58X coverage and here present a de novo assembly of the genome. The assembly consists of 1.7 Gb of genomic and 255 Mb of alternative haplotype specific sequence, made up of contigs with a N50 of 1.4 Mb; a value that, when compared with other assemblies of the Aedes genus, is from 1-3 orders of magnitude longer. The Aag2 genome is highly repetitive (70%), most of which is classified as transposable elements (60%). We identify a plethora of EVEs in the genome homologous to a diverse range of extant viruses, many of which cluster in these regions of highly repetitive DNA. The highly contiguous nature of this assembly allows for a more comprehensive identification of the transposable elements and EVEs that are most likely to be lost in assemblies lacking the read length of SMRT Sequencing. Transmission of arboviruses such as Dengue Virus by Aedes aegypti causes widespread and debilitating disease across the globe. Disease in humans can include severe acute symptoms such as hemorrhagic fever, organ failure, and encephalitis; and yet, mosquitoes tolerate high titers of virus in a persistent infection. The mechanisms responsible for tolerance to viral infection in mosquitoes are still unclear. Recent publications have highlighted the integration of genetic material from non-retroviral RNA viruses into the genome of the host during infection that relies upon endogenous retro-transcriptase activity from transposons. These endogenous viral elements (EVEs) found in the genome are predicted to be ancient and at least some EVEs are under purifying selection, which suggests that they are beneficial to the host. In order characterize EVE biogenesis in a tractable system we sequenced the Ae. aegypti cell line, Aag2, to 58X coverage and here present a de novo assembly of the genome. The assembly consists of 1.7 Gb of genomic and 255 Mb of alternative haplotype specific sequence, made up of contigs with a N50 of 1.4 Mb; a value that, when compared with other assemblies of the Aedes genus, is from 1-3 orders of magnitude longer. The Aag2 genome is highly repetitive (70%), most of which is classified as transposable elements (60%). We identify a plethora of EVEs in the genome homologous to a diverse range of extant viruses, many of which cluster in these regions of highly repetitive DNA. The highly contiguous nature of this assembly allows for a more comprehensive identification of the transposable elements and EVEs that are most likely to be lost in assemblies lacking the read length of SMRT Sequencing. Transmission of arboviruses such as Dengue Virus by Aedes aegypti causes widespread and debilitating disease across the globe. Disease in humans can include severe acute symptoms such as hemorrhagic fever, organ failure, and encephalitis; and yet, mosquitoes tolerate high titers of virus in a persistent infection. The mechanisms responsible for tolerance to viral infection in mosquitoes are still unclear.

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June 1, 2021  |  

A high-quality genome assembly of SMRT Sequences reveals long-range haplotype structure in the diploid mosquito Aedes aegypti

Aedes aegypti is a tropical and subtropical mosquito vector for Zika, yellow fever, dengue fever, chikungunya, and other diseases. The outbreak of Zika in the Americas, which can cause microcephaly in the fetus of infected women, adds urgency to the need for a high-quality reference genome in order to better understand the organism’s biology and its role in transmitting human disease. We describe the first diploid assembly of an insect genome, using SMRT sequencing and the open-source assembler FALCON-Unzip. This assembly has high contiguity (contig N50 1.3 Mb), is more complete than previous assemblies (Length 1.45 Gb with 87% BUSCO genes complete), and is high quality (mean base >QV30). Long-range haplotype structure, in some cases encompassing more than 4 Mb of extremely divergent homologous sequence, is resolved using a combination of the FALCON-Unzip assembler, genome annotation, coverage depth, and pairwise nucleotide alignments.

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June 1, 2021  |  

A high-quality genome assembly of SMRT sequences reveals long range haplotype structure in the diploid mosquito Aedes aegypti

Aedes aegypti is a tropical and subtropical mosquito vector for Zika, yellow fever, dengue fever, and chikungunya. We describe the first diploid assembly of an insect genome, using SMRT Sequencing and the open-source assembler FALCON-Unzip. This assembly has high contiguity (contig N50 1.3 Mb), is more complete than previous assemblies (Length 1.45 Gb with 87% BUSCO genes complete), and is high quality (mean base >QV30 after polishing). Long-range haplotype structure, in some cases encompassing more than 4 Mb of extremely divergent homologous sequence with dramatic differences in coding sequence content, is resolved using a combination of the FALCON-Unzip assembler, genome annotation, coverage depth, and pairwise nucleotide alignments.

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June 1, 2021  |  

A low DNA input protocol for high-quality PacBio de novo genome assemblies from single invertebrate individuals

A high-quality reference genome is an essential tool for studies of plant and animal genomics. PacBio Single Molecule, Real-Time (SMRT) Sequencing generates long reads with uniform coverage and high consensus accuracy, making it a powerful technology for de novo genome assembly. PacBio is the core technology for many large genome initiatives, however, relatively high DNA input requirements (5 µg for standard library protocol) have placed PacBio out of reach for many projects on small, non-inbred organisms that may have lower DNA content. Here we present high-quality de novo genome assemblies from single invertebrate individuals for two different species: the Anopheles coluzzii mosquito and the Schistosoma mansoni parasitic flatworm. A modified SMRTbell library construction protocol without DNA shearing and size selection was used to generate a SMRTbell library from just 50-100 ng of starting genomic DNA. The libraries were run on the Sequel System with chemistry v3.0 and software v6.0, generating a range of 21-32 Gb of sequence per SMRT Cell with 20 hour movies, and followed by diploid de novo genome assembly with FALCON-Unzip. The resulting assemblies had high contiguity (contig N50s over 3 Mb for both species) and completeness (as determined by conserved BUSCO gene analysis). We were also able to resolve maternal and paternal haplotypes for 1/3 of the genome in both cases. By sequencing and assembling material from a single diploid individual, only two haplotypes are present, simplifying the assembly process compared to samples from multiple pooled individuals. This new low-input approach puts PacBio-based assemblies in reach for small, highly heterozygous organisms that comprise much of the diversity of life. The method presented here can be applied to samples with starting DNA amounts around 100 ng per 250 Mb – 1 Gb genome size.

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June 1, 2021  |  

A high-quality de novo genome assembly from a single mosquito using PacBio sequencing

A high-quality reference genome is an essential tool for studies of plant and animal genomics. PacBio Single Molecule, Real-Time (SMRT) Sequencing generates long reads with uniform coverage and high consensus accuracy, making it a powerful technology for de novo genome assembly. While PacBio is the core technology for many large genome initiatives, relatively high DNA input requirements (3 µg for standard library protocol) have placed PacBio out of reach for many projects on small, non-inbred organisms that may have lower DNA content. Here we present high-quality de novo genome assemblies from single invertebrate individuals for two different species: the Anopheles coluzzii mosquito and the Schistosoma mansoni parasitic flatworm. A modified SMRTbell library construction protocol without DNA shearing and size selection was used to generate a SMRTbell library from just 150 ng of starting genomic DNA. The libraries were run on the Sequel System with chemistry v3.0 and software v6.0, generating a range of 21-32 Gb of sequence per SMRT Cell with 20-hour movies (10-12 Gb for 10-hour movies), and followed by diploid de novo genome assembly with FALCON-Unzip. The resulting assemblies had high contiguity (contig N50s over 3 Mb for both species) and completeness (as determined by conserved BUSCO gene analysis). We were also able to resolve maternal and paternal haplotypes for 1/3 of the genome in both cases. By sequencing and assembling material from a single diploid individual, only two haplotypes are present, simplifying the assembly process compared to samples from multiple pooled individuals. This new low-input approach puts PacBio-based assemblies in reach for small, highly heterozygous organisms that comprise much of the diversity of life. The method presented here can be applied to samples with starting DNA amounts around 150 ng per 250 Mb – 600 Mb genome size.

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June 1, 2021  |  

A low DNA input protocol for high-quality PacBio de novo genome assemblies

A high-quality reference genome is an essential tool for studying the genetics of traits and disease, organismal, comparative and conservation biology, and population genomics. PacBio Single Molecule, Real-Time (SMRT) Sequencing generates long reads with uniform coverage and high consensus accuracy, making it a powerful technology for de novo genome assembly. Improvements in throughput and concomitant reductions in cost have made PacBio an attractive core technology for many large genome initiatives. However, relatively high DNA input requirements (3 µg for standard library protocol) have placed PacBio out of reach for many projects on small organisms that may have lower DNA content or on projects with limited input DNA for other reasons. Here we present a modified SMRTbell library construction protocol without DNA shearing or size selection that can be used to generate a SMRTbell library from just 150 ng of starting genomic DNA. Remarkably, the protocol enables high quality de novo assemblies from single invertebrate individuals and is applied to taxonomically diverse samples. By sequencing and assembling material from a single diploid individual, only two haplotypes are present, simplifying the assembly process compared to samples from multiple pooled individuals. The libraries were run on the Sequel System with chemistry v3.0 and software v6.0, generating ~11 Gb of sequence per SMRT Cell with 10 hour movies, and followed by de novo genome assembly with FALCON. The resulting assemblies had high contiguity (contig N50s over 1 Mb) and completeness (as determined by conserved BUSCO gene analysis) when at least 30-fold unique molecular coverage is obtained. This new low-input approach now puts PacBio-based assemblies in reach for small highly heterozygous organisms that comprise much of the diversity of life. The method presented here is scalable and can be applied to samples with starting DNA amounts of 150 ng per 300 Mb genome size.

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June 1, 2021  |  

Every species can be a model: Reference-quality PacBio genomes from single insects

A high-quality reference genome is an essential resource for primary and applied research across the tree of life. Genome projects for small-bodied, non-model organisms such as insects face several unique challenges including limited DNA input quantities, high heterozygosity, and difficulty of culturing or inbreeding in the lab. Recent progress in PacBio library preparation protocols, sequencing throughput, and read accuracy address these challenges. We present several case studies including the Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta), Monarch Butterfly (Danaus plexippus), and Anopheles malaria mosquitoes that highlight the benefits of sequencing single individuals for de novo genome assembly projects, and the ease at which these projects can be conducted by individual research labs. Sampled individuals may originate from lab colonies of interest to the research community or be sourced from the wild to better capture natural variation in a focal population. Where genomic DNA quantities are limited, the PacBio Low DNA Input Protocol requires ~100 ng of input DNA. Low DNA input samples with 500 Mb genome size or less can be multiplexed on a single SMRT Cell 8M on the Sequel II System. For samples with more abundant DNA quantity, size-selected libraries may be constructed to maximize sequencing yield. Both low DNA input and size-selected libraries can be used to generate HiFi reads, whose quality is Q20 or above (1% error or less) and lengths range from 10 – 25 kb. With HiFi reads, de novo assembly computation is greatly simplified relative to long read methods due to smaller sequence file sizes and more rapid analysis, resulting in highly accurate, contiguous, complete, and haplotype-resolved assemblies.

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April 21, 2020  |  

Evolutionary superscaffolding and chromosome anchoring to improve Anopheles genome assemblies

Background New sequencing technologies have lowered financial barriers to whole genome sequencing, but resulting assemblies are often fragmented and far from textquoteleftfinishedtextquoteright. Updating multi-scaffold drafts to chromosome-level status can be achieved through experimental mapping or re-sequencing efforts. Avoiding the costs associated with such approaches, comparative genomic analysis of gene order conservation (synteny) to predict scaffold neighbours (adjacencies) offers a potentially useful complementary method for improving draft assemblies.Results We employed three gene synteny-based methods applied to 21 Anopheles mosquito assemblies to produce consensus sets of scaffold adjacencies. For subsets of the assemblies we integrated these with additional supporting data to confirm and complement the synteny-based adjacencies: six with physical mapping data that anchor scaffolds to chromosome locations, 13 with paired-end RNA sequencing (RNAseq) data, and three with new assemblies based on re-scaffolding or Pacific Biosciences long-read data. Our combined analyses produced 20 new superscaffolded assemblies with improved contiguities: seven for which assignments of non-anchored scaffolds to chromosome arms span more than 75% of the assemblies, and a further seven with chromosome anchoring including an 88% anchored Anopheles arabiensis assembly and, respectively, 73% and 84% anchored assemblies with comprehensively updated cytogenetic photomaps for Anopheles funestus and Anopheles stephensi.Conclusions Experimental data from probe mapping, RNAseq, or long-read technologies, where available, all contribute to successful upgrading of draft assemblies. Our comparisons show that gene synteny-based computational methods represent a valuable alternative or complementary approach. Our improved Anopheles reference assemblies highlight the utility of applying comparative genomics approaches to improve community genomic resources.ADADSEQAGOAGOUTI-basedAGOUTIannotated genome optimization using transcriptome information toolALNalignment-basedCAMSAcomparative analysis and merging of scaffold assemblies toolDPdynamic programmingFISHfluorescence in situ hybridizationGAGOS-ASMGOS-ASMGene order scaffold assemblerKbpkilobasepairsMbpmegabasepairsOSORTHOSTITCHPacBioPacific BiosciencesPBPacBio-basedPHYphysical-mapping-basedRNAseqRNA sequencingQTLquantitative trait lociSYNsynteny-based.

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April 21, 2020  |  

A chromosome-scale assembly of the major African malaria vector Anopheles funestus.

Anopheles funestus is one of the 3 most consequential and widespread vectors of human malaria in tropical Africa. However, the lack of a high-quality reference genome has hindered the association of phenotypic traits with their genetic basis in this important mosquito.Here we present a new high-quality A. funestus reference genome (AfunF3) assembled using 240× coverage of long-read single-molecule sequencing for contigging, combined with 100× coverage of short-read Hi-C data for chromosome scaffolding. The assembled contigs total 446 Mbp of sequence and contain substantial duplication due to alternative alleles present in the sequenced pool of mosquitos from the FUMOZ colony. Using alignment and depth-of-coverage information, these contigs were deduplicated to a 211 Mbp primary assembly, which is closer to the expected haploid genome size of 250 Mbp. This primary assembly consists of 1,053 contigs organized into 3 chromosome-scale scaffolds with an N50 contig size of 632 kbp and an N50 scaffold size of 93.811 Mbp, representing a 100-fold improvement in continuity versus the current reference assembly, AfunF1.This highly contiguous and complete A. funestus reference genome assembly will serve as an improved basis for future studies of genomic variation and organization in this important disease vector. © The Author(s) 2019. Published by Oxford University Press.

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April 21, 2020  |  

A high-quality de novo genome assembly from a single mosquito using PacBio sequencing

A high-quality reference genome is a fundamental resource for functional genetics, comparative genomics, and population genomics, and is increasingly important for conservation biology. PacBio Single Molecule, Real-Time (SMRT) sequencing generates long reads with uniform coverage and high consensus accuracy, making it a powerful technology for de novo genome assembly. Improvements in throughput and concomitant reductions in cost have made PacBio an attractive core technology for many large genome initiatives, however, relatively high DNA input requirements (~5 µg for standard library protocol) have placed PacBio out of reach for many projects on small organisms that have lower DNA content, or on projects with limited input DNA for other reasons. Here we present a high-quality de novo genome assembly from a single Anopheles coluzzii mosquito. A modified SMRTbell library construction protocol without DNA shearing and size selection was used to generate a SMRTbell library from just 100 ng of starting genomic DNA. The sample was run on the Sequel System with chemistry 3.0 and software v6.0, generating, on average, 25 Gb of sequence per SMRT Cell with 20 h movies, followed by diploid de novo genome assembly with FALCON-Unzip. The resulting curated assembly had high contiguity (contig N50 3.5 Mb) and completeness (more than 98% of conserved genes were present and full-length). In addition, this single-insect assembly now places 667 (>90%) of formerly unplaced genes into their appropriate chromosomal contexts in the AgamP4 PEST reference. We were also able to resolve maternal and paternal haplotypes for over 1/3 of the genome. By sequencing and assembling material from a single diploid individual, only two haplotypes were present, simplifying the assembly process compared to samples from multiple pooled individuals. The method presented here can be applied to samples with starting DNA amounts as low as 100 ng per 1 Gb genome size. This new low-input approach puts PacBio-based assemblies in reach for small highly heterozygous organisms that comprise much of the diversity of life.

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September 22, 2019  |  

Single molecule RNA sequencing uncovers trans-splicing and improves annotations in Anopheles stephensi.

Single molecule real-time (SMRT) sequencing has recently been used to obtain full-length cDNA sequences that improve genome annotation and reveal RNA isoforms. Here, we used one such method called isoform sequencing from Pacific Biosciences (PacBio) to sequence a cDNA library from the Asian malaria mosquito Anopheles stephensi. More than 600 000 full-length cDNAs, referred to as reads of insert, were identified. Owing to the inherently high error rate of PacBio sequencing, we tested different approaches for error correction. We found that error correction using Illumina RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) generated more data than using the default SMRT pipeline. The full-length error-corrected PacBio reads greatly improved the gene annotation of Anopheles stephensi: 4867 gene models were updated and 1785 alternatively spliced isoforms were added to the annotation. In addition, six trans-splicing events, where exons from different primary transcripts were joined together, were identified in An. stephensi. All six trans-splicing events appear to be conserved in Culicidae, as they are also found in Anopheles gambiae and Aedes aegypti. The proteins encoded by trans-splicing events are also highly conserved and the orthologues of these proteins are cis-spliced in outgroup species, indicating that trans-splicing may arise as a mechanism to rescue genes that broke up during evolution.© 2017 The Royal Entomological Society.

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