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April 21, 2020

Transcriptomic profiles of 33 opium poppy samples in different tissues, growth phases, and cultivars.

Opium poppy is one of the most important medicinal plants and remains the only commercial resource of morphinan-based painkillers. However, little is known about the regulatory mechanisms involved in benzylisoquinoline alkaloids (BIAs) biosynthesis in opium poppy. Herein, the full-length transcriptome dataset of opium poppy was constructed for the first time in accompanied with the 33 samples of Illumina transcriptome data from different tissues, growth phases and cultivars. The long-read sequencing produced 902,140 raw reads with 55,114 high-quality transcripts, and short-read sequencing produced 1,923,679,864 clean reads with an average Q30 rate of 93%. The high-quality transcripts were subsequently quantified using the short reads, and the expression of each unigene among different samples was calculated as reads per kilobase per million mapped reads (RPKM). These data provide a foundation for opium poppy transcriptomic analysis, which may aid in capturing splice variants and some non-coding RNAs involved in the regulation of BIAs biosynthesis. It can also be used for genome assembly and annotation which will favor in new transcript identification.


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.


April 21, 2020

Progression of the canonical reference malaria parasite genome from 2002-2019.

Here we describe the ways in which the sequence and annotation of the Plasmodium falciparum reference genome has changed since its publication in 2002. As the malaria species responsible for the most deaths worldwide, the richness of annotation and accuracy of the sequence are important resources for the P. falciparum research community as well as the basis for interpreting the genomes of subsequently sequenced species. At the time of publication in 2002 over 60% of predicted genes had unknown functions. As of March 2019, this number has been significantly decreased to 33%. The reduction is due to the inclusion of genes that were subsequently characterised experimentally and genes with significant similarity to others with known functions. In addition, the structural annotation of genes has been significantly refined; 27% of gene structures have been changed since 2002, comprising changes in exon-intron boundaries, addition or deletion of exons and the addition or deletion of genes. The sequence has also undergone significant improvements. In addition to the correction of a large number of single-base and insertion or deletion errors, a major miss-assembly between the subtelomeres of chromosome 7 and 8 has been corrected. As the number of sequenced isolates continues to grow rapidly, a single reference genome will not be an adequate basis for interpretating intra-species sequence diversity. We therefore describe in this publication a population reference genome of P. falciparum, called Pfref1. This reference will enable the community to map to regions that are not present in the current assembly. P. falciparum 3D7 will be continued to be maintained with ongoing curation ensuring continual improvements in annotation quality.


April 21, 2020

Tandem-genotypes: robust detection of tandem repeat expansions from long DNA reads.

Tandemly repeated DNA is highly mutable and causes at least 31 diseases, but it is hard to detect pathogenic repeat expansions genome-wide. Here, we report robust detection of human repeat expansions from careful alignments of long but error-prone (PacBio and nanopore) reads to a reference genome. Our method is robust to systematic sequencing errors, inexact repeats with fuzzy boundaries, and low sequencing coverage. By comparing to healthy controls, we prioritize pathogenic expansions within the top 10 out of 700,000 tandem repeats in whole genome sequencing data. This may help to elucidate the many genetic diseases whose causes remain unknown.


April 21, 2020

The complexity of the Fragaria x ananassa (octoploid) transcriptome by single-molecule long-read sequencing.

Strawberry (Fragaria x ananassa) is an allopolyploid species with diverse and complex transcripts. The regulatory mechanisms of fruit development and maturation have been extensively studied; however, little is known about the signaling mechanisms that direct this process in octoploid strawberry (Fragaria x ananassa). Here, we used long-read sequencing (LRS) technology and RNA-seq analysis to investigate the diversity and complexity of the polyploid transcriptome and differentially expressed transcripts along four successive fruit developmental stages of cultivated strawberry. We obtained a reference transcriptome with 119,897 unique full-length isoforms, including 2017 new isoforms and 2510 long noncoding RNAs. Based on the genome of the plausible progenitor (Fragaria vesca), 20,229 alternative splicing (AS) events were identified. Using this transcriptome, we found 17,485 differentially expressed transcripts during strawberry fruit development, including 527 transcription factors (TFs) belonging to 41 families. The expression profiles of all members of the auxin, ABA pathway, and anthocyanin biosynthesis gene families were also examined, and many of them were highly expressed at the ripe fruit stage, strongly indicating that the role of those genes is in the regulation of fruit ripening. We produce a high-quality reference transcriptome for octoploid strawberry, including much of the full-length transcript diversity, to help understand the regulatory mechanisms of fruit development and maturation of polyploid species, particularly via elucidation of the biochemical pathways involved in auxin, ABA, and anthocyanin biosynthesis.


April 21, 2020

Construction of JRG (Japanese reference genome) with single-molecule real-time sequencing

In recent genome analyses, population-specific reference panels have indicated important. However, reference panels based on short-read sequencing data do not sufficiently cover long insertions. Therefore, the nature of long insertions has not been well documented. Here, we assembled a Japanese genome using single-molecule real-time sequencing data and characterized insertions found in the assembled genome. We identified 3691 insertions ranging from 100?bps to ~10,000?bps in the assembled genome relative to the international reference sequence (GRCh38). To validate and characterize these insertions, we mapped short-reads from 1070 Japanese individuals and 728 individuals from eight other populations to insertions integrated into GRCh38. With this result, we constructed JRGv1 (Japanese Reference Genome version 1) by integrating the 903 verified insertions, totaling 1,086,173 bases, shared by at least two Japanese individuals into GRCh38. We also constructed decoyJRGv1 by concatenating 3559 verified insertions, totaling 2,536,870 bases, shared by at least two Japanese individuals or by six other assemblies. This assembly improved the alignment ratio by 0.4% on average. These results demonstrate the importance of refining the reference assembly and creating a population-specific reference genome. JRGv1 and decoyJRGv1 are available at the JRG website.


April 21, 2020

Horizontal transfer of a retrotransposon between parasitic nematodes and the common shrew.

As the genomes of more metazoan species are sequenced, reports of horizontal transposon transfers (HTT) have increased. Our understanding of the mechanisms of such events is at an early stage. The close physical relationship between a parasite and its host could facilitate horizontal transfer. To date, two studies have identified horizontal transfer of RTEs, a class of retrotransposable elements, involving parasites: ticks might act as vector for BovB between ruminants and squamates, and AviRTE was transferred between birds and parasitic nematodes.We searched for RTEs shared between nematode and mammalian genomes. Given their physical proximity, it was necessary to detect and remove sequence contamination from the genome datasets, which would otherwise distort the signal of horizontal transfer. We developed an approach that is based on reads instead of genomic sequences to reliably detect contamination. From comparison of 43 RTEs across 197 genomes, we identified a single putative case of horizontal transfer: we detected RTE1_Sar from Sorex araneus, the common shrew, in parasitic nematodes. From the taxonomic distribution and evolutionary analysis, we show that RTE1_Sar was horizontally transferred.We identified a new horizontal RTE transfer in host-parasite interactions, which suggests that it is not uncommon. Further, we present and provide the workflow a read-based method to distinguish between contamination and horizontal transfer.


April 21, 2020

Retrotranspositional landscape of Asian rice revealed by 3000 genomes.

The recent release of genomic sequences for 3000 rice varieties provides access to the genetic diversity at species level for this crop. We take advantage of this resource to unravel some features of the retrotranspositional landscape of rice. We develop software TRACKPOSON specifically for the detection of transposable elements insertion polymorphisms (TIPs) from large datasets. We apply this tool to 32 families of retrotransposons and identify more than 50,000 TIPs in the 3000 rice genomes. Most polymorphisms are found at very low frequency, suggesting that they may have occurred recently in agro. A genome-wide association study shows that these activations in rice may be triggered by external stimuli, rather than by the alteration of genetic factors involved in transposable element silencing pathways. Finally, the TIPs dataset is used to trace the origin of rice domestication. Our results suggest that rice originated from three distinct domestication events.


April 21, 2020

CAMISIM: simulating metagenomes and microbial communities.

Shotgun metagenome data sets of microbial communities are highly diverse, not only due to the natural variation of the underlying biological systems, but also due to differences in laboratory protocols, replicate numbers, and sequencing technologies. Accordingly, to effectively assess the performance of metagenomic analysis software, a wide range of benchmark data sets are required.We describe the CAMISIM microbial community and metagenome simulator. The software can model different microbial abundance profiles, multi-sample time series, and differential abundance studies, includes real and simulated strain-level diversity, and generates second- and third-generation sequencing data from taxonomic profiles or de novo. Gold standards are created for sequence assembly, genome binning, taxonomic binning, and taxonomic profiling. CAMSIM generated the benchmark data sets of the first CAMI challenge. For two simulated multi-sample data sets of the human and mouse gut microbiomes, we observed high functional congruence to the real data. As further applications, we investigated the effect of varying evolutionary genome divergence, sequencing depth, and read error profiles on two popular metagenome assemblers, MEGAHIT, and metaSPAdes, on several thousand small data sets generated with CAMISIM.CAMISIM can simulate a wide variety of microbial communities and metagenome data sets together with standards of truth for method evaluation. All data sets and the software are freely available at https://github.com/CAMI-challenge/CAMISIM.


April 21, 2020

Resource Concentration Modulates the Fate of Dissimilated Nitrogen in a Dual-Pathway Actinobacterium.

Respiratory ammonification and denitrification are two evolutionarily unrelated dissimilatory nitrogen (N) processes central to the global N cycle, the activity of which is thought to be controlled by carbon (C) to nitrate (NO3-) ratio. Here we find that Intrasporangium calvum C5, a novel dual-pathway denitrifier/respiratory ammonifier, disproportionately utilizes ammonification rather than denitrification when grown under low C concentrations, even at low C:NO3- ratios. This finding is in conflict with the paradigm that high C:NO3- ratios promote ammonification and low C:NO3- ratios promote denitrification. We find that the protein atomic composition for denitrification modules (NirK) are significantly cost minimized for C and N compared to ammonification modules (NrfA), indicating that limitation for C and N is a major evolutionary selective pressure imprinted in the architecture of these proteins. The evolutionary precedent for these findings suggests ecological importance for microbial activity as evidenced by higher growth rates when I. calvum grows predominantly using its ammonification pathway and by assimilating its end-product (ammonium) for growth under ammonium-free conditions. Genomic analysis of I. calvum further reveals a versatile ecophysiology to cope with nutrient stress and redox conditions. Metabolite and transcriptional profiles during growth indicate that enzyme modules, NrfAH and NirK, are not constitutively expressed but rather induced by nitrite production via NarG. Mechanistically, our results suggest that pathway selection is driven by intracellular redox potential (redox poise), which may be lowered when resource concentrations are low, thereby decreasing catalytic activity of upstream electron transport steps (i.e., the bc1 complex) needed for denitrification enzymes. Our work advances our understanding of the biogeochemical flexibility of N-cycling organisms, pathway evolution, and ecological food-webs.


January 23, 2017

Tutorial: Long Amplicon Analysis application

This tutorial provides an overview of the Long Amplicon Analysis (LAA) application. The LAA algorithm generates highly accurate, phased and full-length consensus sequences from long amplicons. Applications of LAA include…


January 23, 2017

Tutorial: Iso-Seq analysis application

This tutorial provides an overview of the Isoform Sequencing (Iso-Seq) analysis application. The Iso-Seq application provides reads that span entire transcript isoforms, from the 5′ end to the 3′ polyA-tail….


January 23, 2017

Tutorial: HGAP4 de novo assembly application

This tutorial provides an overview of the Hierarchical Genome Assembly Process (HGAP4) de novo assembly analysis application. HGAP4 generates accurate de novo assemblies using only PacBio data. HGAP4 is suitable…


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