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June 1, 2021  |  

Getting the most out of your PacBio libraries with size selection.

PacBio RS II sequencing chemistries provide read lengths beyond 20 kb with high consensus accuracy. The long read lengths of P4-C2 chemistry and demonstrated consensus accuracy of 99.999% are ideal for applications such as de novo assembly, targeted sequencing and isoform sequencing. The recently launched P5-C3 chemistry generates even longer reads with N50 often >10,000 bp, making it the best choice for scaffolding and spanning structural rearrangements. With these chemistry advances, PacBio’s read length performance is now primarily determined by the SMRTbell library itself. Size selection of a high-quality, sheared 20 kb library using the BluePippin™ System has been demonstrated to increase the N50 read length by as much as 5 kb with C3 chemistry. BluePippin size selection or a more stringent AMPure® PB selection cutoff can be used to recover long fragments from degraded genomic material. The selection of chemistries, P4-C2 versus P5-C3, is highly dependent on the final size distribution of the SMRTbell library and experimental goals. PacBio’s long read lengths also allow for the sequencing of full-length cDNA libraries at single-molecule resolution. However, longer transcripts are difficult to detect due to lower abundance, amplification bias, and preferential loading of smaller SMRTbell constructs. Without size selection, most sequenced transcripts are 1-1.5 kb. Size selection dramatically increases the number of transcripts >1.5 kb, and is essential for >3 kb transcripts.


June 1, 2021  |  

Cogent: Reconstructing the coding genome from full-length transcriptome sequences

For highly complex and large genomes, a well-annotated genome may be computationally challenging and costly, yet the study of alternative splicing events and gene annotations usually rely on the existence of a genome. Long-read sequencing technology provides new opportunities to sequence full-length cDNAs, avoiding computational challenges that short read transcript assembly brings. The use of single molecule, real-time sequencing from Pacific Biosciences to sequence transcriptomes (the Iso-SeqTM method), which produces de novo, high-quality, full-length transcripts, has revealed an astonishing amount of alternative splicing in eukaryotic species. With the Iso-Seq method, it is now possible to reconstruct the transcribed regions of the genome using just the transcripts themselves. We present Cogent, a tool for finding gene families and reconstructing the coding genome in the absence of a reference genome. Cogent uses k-mer similarities to first partition the transcripts into different gene families. Then, for each gene family, the transcripts are used to build a splice graph. Cogent identifies bubbles resulting from sequencing errors, minor variants, and exon skipping events, and attempts to resolve each splice graph down to the minimal set of reconstructed contigs. We apply Cogent to a Cuttlefish Iso-Seq dataset, for which there is a highly fragmented, Illumina-based draft genome assembly and little annotation. We show that Cogent successfully discovers gene families and can reconstruct the coding region of gene loci. The reconstructed contigs can then be used to visualize alternative splicing events, identify minor variants, and even be used to improve genome assemblies.


June 1, 2021  |  

From Sequencing to Chromosomes: New de novo assembly and scaffolding methods improve the goat reference genome

Single-molecule sequencing is now routinely used to assemble complete, high-quality microbial genomes, but these assembly methods have not scaled well to large genomes. To address this problem, we previously introduced the MinHash Alignment Process (MHAP) for overlapping single-molecule reads using probabilistic, locality-sensitive hashing. Integrating MHAP with Celera Assembler (CA) has enabled reference-grade assemblies of model organisms, revealing novel heterochromatic sequences and filling low-complexity gap sequences in the GRCh38 human reference genome. We have applied our methods to assemble the San Clemente goat genome. Combining single-molecule sequencing from Pacific Biosciences and BioNano Genomics generates and assembly that is over 150-fold more contiguous than the latest Capra hircus reference. In combination with Hi-C sequencing, the assembly surpasses reference assemblies, de novo, with minimal manual intervention. The autosomes are each assembled into a single scaffold. Our assembly provides a more complete gene reconstruction, better alignments with Goat 52k chip, and improved allosome reconstruction. In addition to providing increased continuity of sequence, our assembly achieves a higher BUSCO completion score (84%) than the existing goat reference assembly suggesting better quality annotation of gene models. Our results demonstrate that single-molecule sequencing can produce near-complete eukaryotic genomes at modest cost and minimal manual effort.


June 1, 2021  |  

Progress Toward a Low Budget Reference Grade Genome Assembly

Reference quality de novo genome assemblies were once solely the domain of large, well-funded genome projects. While next-generation short read technology removed some of the cost barriers, accurate chromosome-scale assembly remains a real challenge. Here we present efforts to de novo assemble the goat (Capra hircus) genome. Through the combination of single-molecule technologies from Pacific Biosciences (sequencing) and BioNano Genomics (optical mapping) coupled with high-throughput chromosome conformation capture sequencing (Hi-C), an inbred San Clemente goat genome has been sequenced and assembled to a high degree of completeness at a relatively modest cost. Starting with 38 million PacBio reads, we integrated the MinHash Alignment Process (MHAP) with the Celera Assembler (CA) to produce an assembly composed of 3110 contigs with a contig N50 size of 4.7 Mb. This assembly was scaffolded with BioNano genome maps derived from a single IrysChip into 333 scaffolds with an N50 of 23.1 Mb including the complete scaffolding of chromosome 20. Finally, cis-chromosome associations were determined by Hi-C, yielding complete reconstruction of all autosomes into single scaffolds with a final N50 of 91.7 Mb. We hope to demonstrate that our methods are not only cost effective, but improve our ability to annotate challenging genomic regions such as highly repetitive immune gene clusters.


June 1, 2021  |  

A comprehensive lincRNA analysis: From conifers to trees

We have produced an updated annotation of the Norway spruce genome on the basis of an in siliconormalised set of RNA-Seq data obtained from 1,529 samples and comprising 15.5 billion paired-end Illumina HiSeq reads complemented by 18Mbp of PacBio cDNA data (3.2M sequences). In addition to augmenting and refining the previous protein coding gene annotation, here we focus on the addition of long intergenic non-coding RNA (lincRNA) and micro RNA (miRNA) genes. In addition to non-coding loci, our analyses also identified protein coding genes that had been missed by the initial genome annotation and enabled us to update the annotation of existing gene models. In particular, splice variant information, as supported by PacBio sequencing reads, has been added to the current annotation and previously fragmented gene models have been merged by scaffolding disjoint genomic scaffolds on the basis of transcript evidence. Using this refined annotation, a targeted analysis of the lincRNAs enabled their classification as i) deeply conserved, ii) conserved in seed plants iii) gymnosperm/conifer specific. Concurrently, complementary analyses were performed as part of the aspen genome project and the results of a comparative analysis of the lincRNAs conserved in both Norway spruce and Eurasian aspen enabled us to identify conserved and diverged expression profiles. At present, we are delving further into the expression results with the aim to functionally annotate the lincRNA genes, by developing a co-expression network analyses based GO annotation.


June 1, 2021  |  

Reconstruction of the spinach coding genome using full-length transcriptome without a reference genome

For highly complex and large genomes, a well-annotated genome may be computationally challenging and costly, yet the study of alternative splicing events and gene annotations usually rely on the existence of a genome. Long-read sequencing technology provides new opportunities to sequence full-length cDNAs, avoiding computational challenges that short read transcript assembly brings. The use of single molecule, real-time sequencing from PacBio to sequence transcriptomes (the Iso-Seq method), which produces de novo, high-quality, full-length transcripts, has revealed an astonishing amount of alternative splicing in eukaryotic species. With the Iso-Seq method, it is now possible to reconstruct the transcribed regions of the genome using just the transcripts themselves. We present Cogent, a tool for finding gene families and reconstructing the coding genome in the absence of a high-quality reference genome. Cogent uses k-mer similarities to first partition the transcripts into different gene families. Then, for each gene family, the transcripts are used to build a splice graph. Cogent identifies bubbles resulting from sequencing errors, minor variants, and exon skipping events, and attempts to resolve each splice graph down to the minimal set of reconstructed contigs. We apply Cogent to the Iso-Seq data for spinach, Spinacia oleracea, for which there is also a PacBio-based draft genome to validate the reconstruction. The Iso-Seq dataset consists of 68,263 fulllength, Quiver-polished transcript sequences ranging from 528 bp to 6 kbp long (mean: 2.1 kbp). Using the genome mapping as ground truth, we found that 95% (8045/8446) of the Cogent gene families found corresponded to a single genomic loci. For families that contained multiple loci, they were often homologous genes that would be categorized as belonging to the same gene family. Coding genome reconstruction was then performed individually for each gene family. A total of 86% (7283/8446) of the gene families were resolved to a single contig by Cogent, and was validated to be also a single contig in the genome. In 59 cases, Cogent reconstructed a single contig, however the contig corresponded to 2 or more loci in the genome, suggesting possible scaffolding opportunities. In 24 cases, the transcripts had no hits to the genome, though Pfam and BLAST searches of the transcripts show that they were indeed coding, suggesting that the genome is missing certain coding portions. Given the high quality of the spinach genome, we were not surprised to find that Cogent only minorly improved the genome space. However the ability of Cogent to accurately identify gene families and reconstruct the coding genome in a de novo fashion shows that it will be extremely powerful when applied to datasets for which there is no or low-quality reference genome.


June 1, 2021  |  

Best practices for diploid assembly of complex genomes using PacBio: A case study of Cascade Hops

A high quality reference genome is an essential resource for plant and animal breeding and functional and evolutionary studies. The common hop (Humulus lupulus, Cannabaceae) is an economically important crop plant used to flavor and preserve beer. Its genome is large (flow cytometrybased estimates of diploid length >5.4Gb1), highly repetitive, and individual plants display high levels of heterozygosity, which make assembly of an accurate and contiguous reference genome challenging with conventional short-read methods. We present a contig assembly of Cascade Hops using PacBio long reads and the diploid genome assembler, FALCON-Unzip2. The assembly has dramatically improved contiguity and completeness over earlier short-read assemblies. The genome is primarily assembled as haplotypes due to the outbred nature of the organism. We explore patterns of haplotype divergence across the assembly and present strategies to deduplicate haplotypes prior to scaffolding


April 21, 2020  |  

Chromosome-level reference genome of X12, a highly virulent race of the soybean cyst nematode Heterodera glycines.

Soybean cyst nematode (SCN, Heterodera glycines) is a major pest of soybean that is spreading across major soybean production regions worldwide. Increased SCN virulence has recently been observed in both the United States and China. However, no study has reported a genome assembly for H. glycines at the chromosome scale. Herein, the first chromosome-level reference genome of X12, an unusual SCN race with high infection ability, is presented. Using whole-genome shotgun (WGS) sequencing, PacBio sequencing, Illumina paired-end sequencing, 10X Genomics linked reads and high-throughput chromatin conformation capture (Hi-C) genome scaffolding techniques, a 141.01-Mb assembled genome was obtained with scaffold and contig N50 sizes of 16.27 Mb and 330.54 kb, respectively. The assembly showed high integrity and quality, with over 90% of Illumina reads mapped to the genome. The assembly quality was evaluated using Core Eukaryotic Genes Mapping Approach (CEGMA) and Benchmarking Universal Single-Copy Orthologs (BUSCO). A total of 11,882 genes were predicted using De novo, Homolog and RNAseq data generated from eggs, second-stage juveniles (J2), third-stage juveniles (J3) and fourth-stage juveniles (J4) of X12, and 79.0% of homologous sequences were annotated in the genome. These high-quality X12 genome data will provide valuable resources for research in a broad range of areas, including fundamental nematode biology, SCN-plant interactions and coevolution, and also contribute to the development of technology for overall SCN management. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.


April 21, 2020  |  

Extended haplotype phasing of de novo genome assemblies with FALCON-Phase

Haplotype-resolved genome assemblies are important for understanding how combinations of variants impact phenotypes. These assemblies can be created in various ways, such as use of tissues that contain single-haplotype (haploid) genomes, or by co-sequencing of parental genomes, but these approaches can be impractical in many situations. We present FALCON-Phase, which integrates long-read sequencing data and ultra-long-range Hi-C chromatin interaction data of a diploid individual to create high-quality, phased diploid genome assemblies. The method was evaluated by application to three datasets, including human, cattle, and zebra finch, for which high-quality, fully haplotype resolved assemblies were available for benchmarking. Phasing algorithm accuracy was affected by heterozygosity of the individual sequenced, with higher accuracy for cattle and zebra finch (>97%) compared to human (82%). In addition, scaffolding with the same Hi-C chromatin contact data resulted in phased chromosome-scale scaffolds.


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.


April 21, 2020  |  

Whole-genome sequence of the oriental lung fluke Paragonimus westermani.

Foodborne infections caused by lung flukes of the genus Paragonimus are a significant and widespread public health problem in tropical areas. Approximately 50 Paragonimus species have been reported to infect animals and humans, but Paragonimus westermani is responsible for the bulk of human disease. Despite their medical and economic importance, no genome sequence for any Paragonimus species is available.We sequenced and assembled the genome of P. westermani, which is among the largest of the known pathogen genomes with an estimated size of 1.1 Gb. A 922.8 Mb genome assembly was generated from Illumina and Pacific Biosciences (PacBio) sequence data, covering 84% of the estimated genome size. The genome has a high proportion (45%) of repeat-derived DNA, particularly of the long interspersed element and long terminal repeat subtypes, and the expansion of these elements may explain some of the large size. We predicted 12,852 protein coding genes, showing a high level of conservation with related trematode species. The majority of proteins (80%) had homologs in the human liver fluke Opisthorchis viverrini, with an average sequence identity of 64.1%. Assembly of the P. westermani mitochondrial genome from long PacBio reads resulted in a single high-quality circularized 20.6 kb contig. The contig harbored a 6.9 kb region of non-coding repetitive DNA comprised of three distinct repeat units. Our results suggest that the region is highly polymorphic in P. westermani, possibly even within single worm isolates.The generated assembly represents the first Paragonimus genome sequence and will facilitate future molecular studies of this important, but neglected, parasite group.


April 21, 2020  |  

Integrating Hi-C links with assembly graphs for chromosome-scale assembly.

Long-read sequencing and novel long-range assays have revolutionized de novo genome assembly by automating the reconstruction of reference-quality genomes. In particular, Hi-C sequencing is becoming an economical method for generating chromosome-scale scaffolds. Despite its increasing popularity, there are limited open-source tools available. Errors, particularly inversions and fusions across chromosomes, remain higher than alternate scaffolding technologies. We present a novel open-source Hi-C scaffolder that does not require an a priori estimate of chromosome number and minimizes errors by scaffolding with the assistance of an assembly graph. We demonstrate higher accuracy than the state-of-the-art methods across a variety of Hi-C library preparations and input assembly sizes. The Python and C++ code for our method is openly available at https://github.com/machinegun/SALSA.


April 21, 2020  |  

Modern technologies and algorithms for scaffolding assembled genomes.

The computational reconstruction of genome sequences from shotgun sequencing data has been greatly simplified by the advent of sequencing technologies that generate long reads. In the case of relatively small genomes (e.g., bacterial or viral), complete genome sequences can frequently be reconstructed computationally without the need for further experiments. However, large and complex genomes, such as those of most animals and plants, continue to pose significant challenges. In such genomes, assembly software produces incomplete and fragmented reconstructions that require additional experimentally derived information and manual intervention in order to reconstruct individual chromosome arms. Recent technologies originally designed to capture chromatin structure have been shown to effectively complement sequencing data, leading to much more contiguous reconstructions of genomes than previously possible. Here, we survey these technologies and the algorithms used to assemble and analyze large eukaryotic genomes, placed within the historical context of genome scaffolding technologies that have been in existence since the dawn of the genomic era.


April 21, 2020  |  

Assembly of allele-aware, chromosomal-scale autopolyploid genomes based on Hi-C data.

Construction of chromosome-level assembly is a vital step in achieving the goal of a ‘Platinum’ genome, but it remains a major challenge to assemble and anchor sequences to chromosomes in autopolyploid or highly heterozygous genomes. High-throughput chromosome conformation capture (Hi-C) technology serves as a robust tool to dramatically advance chromosome scaffolding; however, existing approaches are mostly designed for diploid genomes and often with the aim of reconstructing a haploid representation, thereby having limited power to reconstruct chromosomes for autopolyploid genomes. We developed a novel algorithm (ALLHiC) that is capable of building allele-aware, chromosomal-scale assembly for autopolyploid genomes using Hi-C paired-end reads with innovative ‘prune’ and ‘optimize’ steps. Application on simulated data showed that ALLHiC can phase allelic contigs and substantially improve ordering and orientation when compared to other mainstream Hi-C assemblers. We applied ALLHiC on an autotetraploid and an autooctoploid sugar-cane genome and successfully constructed the phased chromosomal-level assemblies, revealing allelic variations present in these two genomes. The ALLHiC pipeline enables de novo chromosome-level assembly of autopolyploid genomes, separating each allele. Haplotype chromosome-level assembly of allopolyploid and heterozygous diploid genomes can be achieved using ALLHiC, overcoming obstacles in assembling complex genomes.


April 21, 2020  |  

Finding Nemo’s Genes: A chromosome-scale reference assembly of the genome of the orange clownfish Amphiprion percula.

The iconic orange clownfish, Amphiprion percula, is a model organism for studying the ecology and evolution of reef fishes, including patterns of population connectivity, sex change, social organization, habitat selection and adaptation to climate change. Notably, the orange clownfish is the only reef fish for which a complete larval dispersal kernel has been established and was the first fish species for which it was demonstrated that antipredator responses of reef fishes could be impaired by ocean acidification. Despite its importance, molecular resources for this species remain scarce and until now it lacked a reference genome assembly. Here, we present a de novo chromosome-scale assembly of the genome of the orange clownfish Amphiprion percula. We utilized single-molecule real-time sequencing technology from Pacific Biosciences to produce an initial polished assembly comprised of 1,414 contigs, with a contig N50 length of 1.86 Mb. Using Hi-C-based chromatin contact maps, 98% of the genome assembly were placed into 24 chromosomes, resulting in a final assembly of 908.8 Mb in length with contig and scaffold N50s of 3.12 and 38.4 Mb, respectively. This makes it one of the most contiguous and complete fish genome assemblies currently available. The genome was annotated with 26,597 protein-coding genes and contains 96% of the core set of conserved actinopterygian orthologs. The availability of this reference genome assembly as a community resource will further strengthen the role of the orange clownfish as a model species for research on the ecology and evolution of reef fishes. © 2018 The Authors. Molecular Ecology Resources Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.


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