Winston Timp from Johns Hopkins University studies the metabolism of hummingbirds, which sustain the highest metabolic rates among all vertebrates. Notably, hummingbirds can switch rapidly between a fuel of lipids to newly ingested sugars. This remarkable metabolism is supported by enzymes which operate at the extreme limit of catalytic efficiency. Understanding the molecular basis of enzymatic action will provide a foundation enabling rational engineering of metabolic circuits in other systems. To do this, Dr. Timp and his team generated a de novo transcriptome of the hummingbird liver using the Iso-Seq method. Characterization of the resulting protein coding sequences provides clues…
See what PacBio users had to say about SMRT Sequencing at the Plant and Animal Genome (PAG) Conference in San Diego. This brief video captures highlights from posters, presentations, and the exhibit hall. See how SMRT Sequencing benefits plant and animal scientists in their genomic investigations. [Engligh, some Mandarin]
Michael Schatz of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and Johns Hopkins University discusses the challenges in detecting structural variations (SVs) in high throughput sequencing data, especially more complex SVs such as a duplication nested within an inversion. To overcome these challenges, Dr. Schatz and his team have been applying long-read sequencing to analyze SVs in a range of samples from small microbial genomes, through mid-sized plant and animal genomes, to large mammalian genomes. The increased read lengths, which currently average over 10kbp and some approach 100kbp, make it possible to span more complex SVs and accurately assess SVs in repetitive regions,…
Tim Smith, molecular geneticist at the USDA Agricutural Research Service (ARS) in Clay Center, Nebraska, and director of the U.S. Meat Animal Reseach Center Core Facilities, discusses the USDA’s efforts to improve the goat, swine, cattle, and sheep genomes through long read-based de novoassemblies scaffolded with a variety of approaches. Recent advances in long-read sequencing, combined with new technologies for scaffolding the resulting contigs, have made it possible to make a significant change in the quality of genome assemblies for a very small fraction of the price required to create the originals. Although a change of reference genomes incurs cost,…
Jason Chin, senior director of bioinformatics at PacBio, talks about using long-read sequence data to generate diploid genome assemblies to produce comprehensive haplotype sequence reconstructions. In the presentation, Chin describes the FALCON Unzip process that combines SNP phasing with the assembly process and allows for determination of the haplotype sequences and identification of structural variants. He presents an example of diploid assembly from inbred Arabidopsis strains.
David Kudrna, Rod Wing, and the Arizona Genomics Institute (AGI) plan to fully sequence and annotate the genomes and transcriptomes of 3-4 accessions from each of the estimated 9-15 subpopulation of rice. These subpopulation-specific references will be used to map resequencing data of 3,000 individuals for variation discovery, GWAS, and genomic selection studies to address important traits such as biotic and abiotic stress tolerances, yield, and grain quality. Here Dr. Kudrna presents the first high-quality genome sequence of the rice variety Nagina22. AGI produced and assembled 65-fold coverage of SMRT Sequencing data, resulting in an assembly of 373 Mb with…
Robert Henry, Professor of Innovation in Agriculture and Director of the Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation at the University of Queensland, Australia, discusses how whole genome analysis of Australian wild rice is being used to better understand rice domestication, with the goal of making a diverse genetic resource available for increased rice food security worldwide. The wild “A genome” species represent an effective gene pool for rice. SMRT Sequencing and assembly of two taxon of wild Australian rice has allowed analysis of the relationships with this group. Domesticated rice (Oryza sativa ssp. japonica) nuclear genome shows close relationship…
Grant Cramer from the University of Nevada, Reno, and Dario Cantu from the Univeristy of Callifornia, Davis, discuss past challenges with sequencing Clone 8 of Cabernet Sauvignon (Vitis vinifera). An assembly of the genome was attempted with approximately 110x Illumina reads and 5x PacBio reads. The PacBio SMRT Sequencing read made major improvements in the assembly compared with the results of Illumina reads only. However, the assembly results were still unsatisfactory, so an additional 100-fold SMRT Sequencing coverage had been generated. An update on the current sequencing results and status of the assembly are presented.
Hélène Berges, managing director of the Plant Genomic Center at the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA) in Toulouse, France, discusses how obtaining accurate and reliable sequence data is still challenging when targeting specific genomic regions. These issues are even more noticeable for complex plant genomes. To overcome these issues, Dr. Berges and her team have developed a strategy to reduce the genome complexity by using the large insert BAC libraries combined with next-generation sequencing technologies. She compares different technologies to sequence pools of BAC clones from several species (maize, wheat, strawberry, barley, sugarcane, and sunflower) known to be…
Sergey Koren of the National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center (NBACC) discusses integrating the MinHash Alignment Process (MHAP) with Celera Assembler to enable reference-grade assemblies of model organisms, revealing novel heterochromatic sequences and filling low-complexity gap sequences in the GRCh38 human reference genome. Dr. Koren and his team have applied this method to assemble the San Clemente goat genome. Combining SMRT Sequencing and next-generation optical mapping from BioNano Genomics generates an assembly that is over 150-fold more contiguous than the latest Capra hircusgoat reference. In combination with Hi-C sequencing, the assembly surpasses reference assemblies de novo, with minimal manual intervention.…
In this PAG 2018 presentation, Bill Ballard of University of New South Wales, presents research into the origins and potential domestication of the Australian dingo, winner of the 2017 SMRT Grant Program. Ballard used PacBio long-read whole genome sequencing to sequence and assemble the dingo genome. Ongoing work focuses on identifying common and unique genomic regions with a domestic dog genome to better understand shared ancestry and ultimately to aid in dingo conservation efforts.
In this PAG 2018 presentation, Marty Badgett of PacBio, shares updates on PacBio products and performance. He highlights high-quality genome assembles for Arabidopsis, rice, and maize, the SMRTbell Express Template Prep Kit, SMRT Analysis updates, and the Iso-Seq method for RNA sequencing.
In this PAG 2018 presentation, Tanya Renner of Pennsylvania State University shares research using PacBio SMRT Sequencing to understand the genomes and transcriptomes of carnivorous plants. She describes the humped bladderwort, Utricularia gibba, as having an extreme genome due to its small size (100 Mbp) despite containing numerous tandem gene duplications and having undergone two whole genome duplications. Renner shares ongoing research into two Drosera species, commonly known as sundews, which through whole genome sequencing are illuminating carnivorous plant genome structural evolution including the transition from monocentric to holocentric chromosomes.
In this PAG 2018 presentation, John Williams of University of Adelaide, presents research on using PacBio SMRT Sequencing to explore the genetic origins of cattle subspecies, Angus (Bos taurus taurus) and Brahman (Bos taurus indicus). He shares RNA sequencing data using the PacBio Iso-Seq method to compare transcriptomes and phase allelic expression and describes how the IsoPhase technique enables evaluation of SNPs through transcriptome mapping back to the single genome of a cross-bred individual. Using a genomic and transcriptomic approach, two high-quality genomes from a single individual and gene isoforms specific to each subspecies are being identified.
In this presentation, Andrew Clark from Cornell University describes work from a collaboration with Manyuan Long of the University of Chicago and Rod Wing of the University of Arizona to look at heterochromatic regions with long simple satellite repeats in drosophila genomes. The group used PacBio sequencing to create new genome assemblies of 10 drosophila species, including de novo assemblies of two individual flies using as little as 26 ng of gDNA.