The release of the PacBio Sequel II System in 2019 brought dramatic throughput improvements and protocols for producing a new data type, highly accurate long reads or HiFi reads. PacBio is the only sequencing technology to offer highly accurate long reads (HiFi reads) that provide Sanger-quality accuracy (>99%) with the read lengths needed for assembly of complex genomes. The long length and high accuracy of HiFi reads makes them the ideal starting point for many applications, and one area of major interest is genome assembly. HiFi assembly is faster, cheaper, more accurate, and easier to phase than standard long-read assembly.…
Whole genome sequencing can provide comprehensive information important for determining the biochemical and genetic nature of all elements inside a genome. The high-quality genome references produced from past genome projects and advances in short-read sequencing technologies have enabled quick and cheap analysis for simple variants. However even with the focus on genome-wide resequencing for SNPs, the heritability of more than 50% of human diseases remains elusive. For non-human organisms, high-contiguity references are deficient, limiting the analysis of genomic features. The long and unbiased reads from single molecule, real-time (SMRT) Sequencing and new de novo assembly approaches have demonstrated the ability…
PacBio sequencing holds promise for addressing large-genome complexities, such as long, highly repetitive, low-complexity regions and duplication events that are difficult to resolve with short-read technologies. Several strategies, with varying outcomes, are available for de novo sequencing and assembling of larger genomes. Using a diploid fungal genome, estimated to be ~80 Mb in size, as the basis dataset for comparison, we highlight assembly options when using only PacBio sequencing or a combined strategy leveraging data sets from multiple sequencing technologies. Data generated from SMRT Sequencing was subjected to assembly using different large-genome assemblers, and comparisons of the results will be…
2015 SMRT Informatics Developers Conference Presentation Slides: Jason Chin of PacBio highlighted some of the challenges for shotgun assembly while suggesting some potential solutions to obtain diploid assemblies, including the FALCON method.