It’s DNA Day, the annual celebration of the discovery of the double helix, the completion of the Human Genome Project, and all things genetic. We like to take the opportunity to look back at DNA-based advances from the past year, and progress has been truly stunning. Just when we think it couldn’t get more awe-inspiring, scientists generate new results that prove us wrong.
One of the most impressive feats in the past year has been the proliferation of population-specific, reference-grade human genomes. From the Chinese genome assembly that recovered nearly 13 Mb of sequence missed in GRCh38 and produced new insights around alternative splicing to the diploid Korean genome assembly that detected nearly 12,000 novel structural variants — including several specific to Asian populations — these new resources are showing us how much sequencing must be done to represent the universe of natural human genetic variation. Several other country or population genome projects have reported results or are in the works, and we’re eager to see how this data fills in the blanks to help us better understand the human genome. Structural variation in particular is being detected more comprehensively than ever, with even small amounts of long-read sequencing helping scientists to connect these elements to their likely function.
We’ve also seen compelling work from the plant and animal research community. Just in the past year, scientists have published new high-quality genome assemblies for quinoa and goat, shattering contiguity records even for challenging genomes. In maize, researchers reported new studies that produced accurate gene copy number counts and a more complex transcriptome than anticipated. Alternative splicing was also the focus of a sorghum study. And we were delighted to learn that the Genome 10K (G10K) and Bird 10,000 Genomes (B10K) initiatives announced plans to ramp up their efforts to generate high-quality de novo genome assemblies.
On the microbial front, we were especially fascinated by a new report detailing the epigenetic changes that occur as free-living bacteria morph into symbiotic bacteria associated with a host. There was also a project that investigated how drug-resistance plasmids are swapped across bacterial species by analyzing the entire “mobilome” of carbapenemase-producing Enterobacteriaceae. And since we’re suckers for extremophile research, we couldn’t resist this genome profile of a single-celled diatom living in the Antarctic Ocean.
All of these projects were accomplished with SMRT Sequencing. On DNA Day, we’d like to congratulate the entire research community working to improve our understanding of genomics.
April 25, 2017 | General