From crop improvement to breeding healthier livestock to modeling human disease, scientists are using PacBio Sequencing to advance understanding of plant and animal genomes. In this article, we look at four examples of plant and animal genome references improved or made possible with SMRT Sequencing, including an early example of transcriptome sequencing of a chicken for improved annotation. These examples highlight insights gained with SMRT Sequencing that are missed with short-read data, such as complex regions or novel genes.
In order to understand the molecular mechanisms governing the outcomes of disease, health and survival, immunologists have to characterize exceptionally complex genomic regions, like major histocompatibility complex (MHC), killer cell immune receptors (KIR), and the B and T-cell immune repertoire. Single Molecule, Real-Time (SMRT) Sequencing delivers the long read lengths, uniform coverage and high accuracy necessary to comprehensively and confidently resolve these immune sub-genomic regions. The granularity of data generated by PacBio® reads provides new access to imputation-free characterization of genes and haplotypes for invaluable genomic insights to advance disease association and evolutionary research.
At the University of Arizona, a leading genomics research facility benefits from decades of BAC- based sequencing expertise, original studies of crop genomes, and a unique emphasis on high molecular weight DNA.
At Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, scientists used SMRT Sequencing to decode one of the most challenging cancer genomes ever encountered. Along the way, they built a portfolio of open-access analysis tools that will help researchers everywhere make structural variation discoveries with long-read sequencing data.
Single Molecule, Real-Time (SMRT®) Sequencing combines long reads with uniform coverage to provide uniquely comprehensive views of plant and animal genomes and transcriptomes. High-quality genome assemblies and evidence-based annotations promote improved genetic marker development, discovery of novel genes, and structural variation characterization.
Many scientists are using PacBio Single Molecule, Real-Time (SMRT) Sequencing to explore the genomes and transcriptomes of a wide variety of marine species and ecosystems. These studies are already adding to our understanding of how marine species adapt and evolve, contributing to conservation efforts, and informing how we can optimize food production through efficient aquaculture.
The widespread occurrence of repetitive stretches of DNA in genomes of organisms across the tree of life imposes fundamental challenges for sequencing, genome assembly, and automated annotation of genes and proteins. This multi-level problem can lead to errors in genome and protein databases that are often not recognized or acknowledged. As a consequence, end users working with sequences with repetitive regions are faced with ‘ready-to-use’ deposited data whose trustworthiness is difficult to determine, let alone to quantify. Here, we provide a review of the problems associated with tandem repeat sequences that originate from different stages during the sequencing-assembly-annotation-deposition workflow, and…
Domestication of clonally propagated crops such as pineapple from South America was hypothesized to be a ‘one-step operation’. We sequenced the genome of Ananas comosus var. bracteatus CB5 and assembled 513?Mb into 25 chromosomes with 29,412 genes. Comparison of the genomes of CB5, F153 and MD2 elucidated the genomic basis of fiber production, color formation, sugar accumulation and fruit maturation. We also resequenced 89 Ananas genomes. Cultivars ‘Smooth Cayenne’ and ‘Queen’ exhibited ancient and recent admixture, while ‘Singapore Spanish’ supported a one-step operation of domestication. We identified 25 selective sweeps, including a strong sweep containing a pair of tandemly duplicated…
A Gram-stain-negative bacterial strain, designated CA10T, was isolated from bovine raw milk sampled in Anseong, Republic of Korea. Cells were yellow-pigmented, aerobic, non-motile bacilli and grew optimally at 30?°C and pH 7.0 on tryptic soy agar without supplementation of NaCl. Phylogenetic analysis based on the 16S rRNA gene sequences revealed that strain CA10T belonged to the genus Chryseobacterium, family Flavobacteriaceae, and was most closely related to Chryseobacterium indoltheticum ATCC 27950T (98.75?% similarity). The average nucleotide identity and digital DNA-DNA hybridization values of strain CA10T were 94.4 and 56.9?%, respectively, relative to Chryseobacterium scophthalmum DSM 16779T, being lower than the cut-off…
A Gram-stain-negative, rod-shaped and red-pigmented strain, HME7025T, was isolated from freshwater sampled in the Republic of Korea. Phylogenetic analysis based on its 16S rRNA gene sequence revealed that strain HME7025T formed a lineage within the family Cytophagaceae of the phylum Bacteroidetes. Strain HME7025T was closely related to the genera Pseudarcicella, Arcicella and Flectobacillus. The 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity values of strain HME7025T were under 94.5?% to its closest phylogenetic neighbours. The major fatty acids of strain HME7025T were iso-C15?:?0 (41.9?%), summed feature 3 (comprising C16?:?1?7c and/or C16?:?1?6c; 12.2?%) and anteiso-C15?:?0 (10.8?%). The major respiratory quinone was menaquinone-7. The major…
To track stepwise changes in genetic diversity and antimicrobial resistance in rapidly evolving OXA-232-producing Klebsiella pneumoniae ST14, an emerging carbapenem-resistant high-risk clone, in clinical settings.Twenty-six K. pneumoniae ST14 isolates were collected by the Korean Nationwide Surveillance of Antimicrobial Resistance system over the course of 1 year. Isolates were subjected to whole-genome sequencing and MIC determinations using 33 antibiotics from 14 classes.Single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) typing identified 72 unique SNP sites spanning the chromosomes of the isolates, dividing them into three clusters (I, II and III). The initial isolate possessed two plasmids with 18 antibiotic-resistance genes, including blaOXA-232, and exhibited resistance to 11 antibiotic…
China is the origin and evolutionary centre of Oriental pears. Pyrus betuleafolia is a wild species native to China and distributed in the northern region, and it is widely used as rootstock. Here, we report the de novo assembly of the genome of P. betuleafolia-Shanxi Duli using an integrated strategy that combines PacBio sequencing, BioNano mapping and chromosome conformation capture (Hi-C) sequencing. The genome assembly size was 532.7 Mb, with a contig N50 of 1.57 Mb. A total of 59 552 protein-coding genes and 247.4 Mb of repetitive sequences were annotated for this genome. The expansion genes in P. betuleafolia were significantly enriched in secondary metabolism,…
Chlorella vulgaris is a fast-growing fresh-water microalga cultivated at the industrial scale for applications ranging from food to biofuel production. To advance our understanding of its biology and to establish genetics tools for biotechnological manipulation, we sequenced the nuclear and organelle genomes of Chlorella vulgaris 211/11P by combining next generation sequencing and optical mapping of isolated DNA molecules. This hybrid approach allowed to assemble the nuclear genome in 14 pseudo-molecules with an N50 of 2.8 Mb and 98.9% of scaffolded genome. The integration of RNA-seq data obtained at two different irradiances of growth (high light-HL versus low light -LL) enabled…
Background Assemblies of diploid genomes are generally unphased, pseudo-haploid representations that do not correctly reconstruct the two parental haplotypes present in the individual sequenced. Instead, the assembly alternates between parental haplotypes and may contain duplications in regions where the parental haplotypes are sufficiently different. Trio binning is an approach to genome assembly that uses short reads from both parents to classify long reads from the offspring according to maternal or paternal haplotype origin, and is thus helped rather than impeded by heterozygosity. Using this approach, it is possible to derive two assemblies from an individual, accurately representing both parental contributions…
Horizontal transfer of plasmids encoding antimicrobial-resistance and virulence determinants has been instrumental in Staphylococcus aureus evolution, including the emergence of community-associated methicillin-resistant S. aureus (CA-MRSA). In the early 1990s the first CA-MRSA isolated in Western Australia (WA), WA-5, encoded cadmium, tetracycline and penicillin-resistance genes on plasmid pWBG753 (~30 kb). WA-5 and pWBG753 appeared only briefly in WA, however, fusidic-acid-resistance plasmids related to pWBG753 were also present in the first European CA-MRSA at the time. Here we characterized a 72-kb conjugative plasmid pWBG731 present in multiresistant WA-5-like clones from the same period. pWBG731 was a cointegrant formed from pWBG753 and a…