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August 19, 2021  |  

Case Study — Pioneering a pan-genome reference collection

At DuPont Pioneer, DNA sequencing is paramount for R&D to reveal the genetic basis for traits of interest in commercial crops such as maize, soybean, sorghum, sunflower, alfalfa, canola, wheat, rice, and others. They cannot afford to wait the years it has historically taken for high-quality reference genomes to be produced. Nor can they rely on a single reference to represent the genetic diversity in its germplasm.


August 19, 2021  |  Sequencing methods

Application brief — Single-cell RNA sequencing with HiFi reads

With PacBio single-cell RNA sequencing using the Iso-Seq method, you can now distinguish between alternative transcript isoforms at the single-cell level. The highly accurate long reads (HiFi reads) can span the entire 5′ to 3′ end of a transcript, allowing a high-resolution view of isoform diversity and revealing cell-to-cell heterogeneity without the need for assembly.


August 19, 2021  |  Infectious disease research

Application brief — Variant detection using whole genome sequencing with HiFi reads

With highly accurate long reads (HiFi reads) from the Sequel II or IIe Systems you can comprehensively detect variants in 100s to 1000s of genomes in a year. HiFi reads provide high precision and recall for single nucleotide variants (SNVs), indels, structural variants (SVs), and copy number variants (CNVs), including in difficult-to-map repetitive regions.


June 1, 2021  |  

Genome sequencing of endosymbiotic bacterial Streptomyces sp. from Antartic lichen using Single Molecule Real-time Sequencing (SMRT) technology.

Along with the advent of next-generation sequencing (NGS) techniques, it has become possible to sequence a microbial genome very quickly with high coverage. Recently, PacificBioscience developed single molecule real-time sequencing (SMRT) technology, 3rd generation sequencing platform, which provide much longer (average read length: 1.5Kb) reads without PCR amplification. We did de novo sequencing of Streptomyces sp. using Illumina GAIIx, Roche 454 and PacBio RS system and compared the data. The endosymbiotic bacteria Streptomyces sp. PAMC 26508 was isolated from Antarctic lichen Psoroma sp. that grows attached rocks on Barton Peninsula, King George Island, Antarctica (62, 13’S, 58, 47’W). With 4 SMRT cells, we could get more than 15x coverage of corrected sequence data for de novo assembly. Comparing the performance of other sequencing platforms, PacBio platform could generate data on similar manner with general mid-level GC content organism. In conclusion, PacBio RS system, SMRT technology, shows better performance with high GC content organisms and is expected to be the new tool to improve the de novo sequencing and assembly.


June 1, 2021  |  

Genome sequencing of microbial genomes using Single Molecule Real-time sequencing (SMRT) technology.

In the last year, high-throughput sequencing technologies have progressed from proof-of-concept to production quality. Although each technology is able to produce vast quantities of sequence information, in every case the underlying chemistry limits reads to very short lengths. We present a examining de novo assembly comparison with bacterial genome assembly varying genome size (from 3.1Mb to 7.6Mb) and different G+C contents (from 43% to 71%), respectively. We analyzed Solexa reads, 454 reads and Pacbio RS reads from Streptomyces sp. (Genome size, 7.6 Mb; G+C content, 71%), Psychrobacter sp. (Genome size, 3.5 Mb; G+C content, 43%), Salinibacterium sp. (Genome size, 3.1 Mb; G+C content, 61%) and Frigoribacterium sp. (Genome size, 3.3 Mb; G+C content, 63%). We assembly each bacterial genome using Celera assembler 7.0 with and without PacBio RS reads. We found out that the assemble result with Pacbio RS reads have less contigs and scaffolds, and better N50 values.


June 1, 2021  |  

New discoveries from closing Salmonella genomes using Pacific Biosciences continuous long reads.

The newer hierarchical genome assembly process (HGAP) performs de novo assembly using data from a single PacBio long insert library. To assess the benefits of this method, DNA from several Salmonella enterica serovars was isolated from a pure culture. Genome sequencing was performed using Pacific Biosciences RS sequencing technology. The HGAP process enabled us to close sixteen Salmonella subsp. enterica genomes and their associated mobile elements: The ten serotypes include: Salmonella enterica subsp. enterica serovar Enteritidis (S. Enteritidis) S. Bareilly, S. Heidelberg, S. Cubana, S. Javiana and S. Typhimurium, S. Newport, S. Montevideo, S. Agona, and S. Tennessee. In addition, we were able to detect novel methyltransferases (MTases) by using the Pacific Biosciences kinetic score distributions showing that each serovar appears to have a novel methylation pattern. For example while all Salmonella serovars examined so far have methylase specific activity for 5’-GATC-3’/3’-CTAG-5’ and 5’-CAGAG-3’/3’-GTCTC-5’ (underlined base indicates a modification), S. Heidelberg is uniquely specific for 5’-ACCANCC-3’/3’-TGGTNGG-5’, while S. Typhimurium has uniquely methylase specific for 5′-GATCAG-3’/3′- CTAGTC-5′ sites, for the samples examined so far. We believe that this may be due to the unique environments and phages that these serotypes have been exposed to. Furthermore, our analysis identified and closed a variety of plasmids such as mobilization plasmids, antimicrobial resistance plasmids and IncX plasmids carrying a Type IV secretion system (T4SS). The VirB/D4 T4SS apparatus is important in that it assists with rapid dissemination of antibiotic resistance and virulence determinants. Presently, only limited information exists regarding the genotypic characterization of drug resistance in S. Heidelberg isolates derived from various host species. Here, we characterize two S. Heidelberg outbreak isolates from two different outbreaks. Both isolates contain the IncX plasmid of approximately 35 kb, and carried the genes virB1, virB2, virB3/4, virB5, virB6, virB7, virB8, virB9, virB10, virB11, virD2, and virD4, that are associated with the T4SS. In addition, the outbreak isolate associated with ground turkey carries a 4,473 bp mobilization plasmid and an incompatibility group (Inc) I1 antimicrobial resistance plasmid encoding resistance to gentamicin (aacC2), beta-lactam (bl2b_tem), streptomycin (aadAI) and tetracycline (tetA, tetR) while the outbreak isolate associated with chicken breast carries the IncI1 plasmid encoding resistance to gentamicin (aacC2), streptomycin (aadAI) and sulfisoxazole (sul1). Using this new technology we explored the genetic elements present in resistant pathogens which will achieve a better understanding of the evolution of Salmonella.


June 1, 2021  |  

Long-read, single-molecule applications for protein engineering.

The long read lengths of PacBio’s SMRT Sequencing enable detection of linked mutations across multiple kilobases of sequence. This feature is particularly useful in the context of protein engineering, where large numbers of similar constructs are generated routinely to explore the effects of mutations on function and stability. We have developed a PCR-based barcoded sequencing method to generate high quality, full-length sequence data for batches of constructs generated in a common backbone. Individual barcodes are coupled to primers targeting a common region of the vector of interest. The amplified products are pooled into a single DNA library, and sequencing data are clustered by barcode to generate multi-molecule consensus sequences for each construct present in the pool. As a proof-of-concept dataset, we have generated a library of 384 randomly mutated variants of the Phi29 DNA polymerase, a 575 amino acid protein encoded by a 1.7 kb gene. These variants were amplified with a set of barcoded primers, and the resulting library was sequenced on a single SMRT Cell. The data produced sequences that were completely concordant with independent Sanger sequencing, for a 100% accurate reconstruction of the set of clones.


June 1, 2021  |  

Accurately surveying uncultured microbial species with SMRT Sequencing

Background: Microbial ecology is reshaping our understanding of the natural world by revealing the large phylogenetic and functional diversity of microbial life. However the vast majority of these microorganisms remain poorly understood, as most cultivated representatives belong to just four phylogenetic groups and more than half of all identified phyla remain uncultivated. Characterization of this microbial ‘dark matter’ will thus greatly benefit from new metagenomic methods for in situ analysis. For example, sensitive high throughput methods for the characterization of community composition and structure from the sequencing of conserved marker genes. Methods: Here we utilize Single Molecule Real-Time (SMRT) sequencing of full-length 16S rRNA amplicons to phylogenetically profile microbial communities to below the genus-level. We test this method on a mock community of known composition, as well as a previously studied microbial community from a lake known to predominantly contain poorly characterized phyla. These results are compared to traditional 16S tag sequencing from short-read technologies and subsets of the full-length data corresponding to the same regions of the 16S gene. Results: We explore the benefits of using full-length amplicons for estimating community structure and diversity. In addition, we investigate the possible effects of context-specific and GC-content biases known to affect short-read sequencing technologies on the predicted community structure. We characterize the potential benefits of profiling metagenomic communities with full-length 16S rRNA genes from SMRT sequencing relative to standard methods.


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