SMRT Resources

During a PAG 2020 workshop, Zev Kronenberg, a senior bioinformatics engineer at PacBio, describes how he used the PacBio Iso-Seq transcriptome sequencing and analysis method to annotate great ape genomes, detangle several complicated loci, and enrich our biological understanding of the differences between apes and humans.

Mark Blaxter, project lead of the Sanger Institute’s Darwin Tree of Life, shared an update of the ambitious effort to sequence all 60,000 species believed to be on the British Isles over the next 12 years in this presentation at the PAG 2020 Conference. The Sanger team has already generated data for 94 species, including 44 new moth and butterfly (Lepidoptera) PacBio assemblies, which Blaxter describes in this presentation.

In this talk at PAG 2020, PacBio Plant and Animal Sciences Marketing Manager Michelle Vierra discusses recent updates to Single Molecule, Real-Time (SMRT) Sequencing technology, including the Sequel II System, updated protocols for low-input as well as other upcoming developments.

Jana U’Ren of the University of Arizona discusses the fungi that live inside of plants at a PacBio workshop at the PAG 2020 conference. U’Ren studies the biology and evolution of mycorrhizal fungi found in the photosynthetic tissue of plant leaves, which are grouped together functionally as endophytes. In this video, she shares some of her preliminary findings collecting and analyzing samples from Boreal forests around the world.

In this presentation at PAG 2020, Bart Nijland of Genetwister Technologies explains how his team set out to make a haplotype-aware assembly of the highly complex tetraploid Rosa x hybrida L. genome in order to capture its full range of genetic variation. HiFi reads generated from PacBio’s Sequel II System have made it possible to parse out critical information from many of the plant’s parental genes.

In this introductory talk to our PAG 2020 workshop, PacBio Chief Scientific Officer Jonas Korlach presents the evolution of Single Molecule, Real-Time (SMRT) Sequencing technology over the past decade and highlights recent developments, including the Sequel II System performance and reliability

PacBio Sequencing is powered by Single Molecule, Real-Time (SMRT) Sequencing technology. The Sequel II System offers the affordable, highly accurate long reads needed to gain comprehensive views of genomes, transcriptomes, and epigenomes. Watch this video to get to know the Sequel II System, explore the key advantages of SMRT Sequencing, and learn how its applications can be used to drive new discoveries.

Epigenetics expert Michael Jennings from Griffith University first posited the phasevarion, or the phase variable regulon mechanism in host-adapted pathogens. This mechanism switches expression of multiple genes in a coordinated fashion and has significant implications on pathogen virulence. In his talk, Jennings describes the phasevarion and his use of whole methylome data to rapidly identify methylation targets.

At the PacBio ASHG workshop, Hagen Tilgner describes how he used long-read sequencing with Iso-Seq method to generate the first personal transcriptomes for three individuals. From these three family members, he and his collaborators were able to unambigously assign allele-specific RNA haplotypes, including HLA haplotypes, and demonstrated Mendelian inheritance of RNA molecules.

KIR haplotypes can be determined by physical and computational and statistical methods. Martin Maiers from National Bone Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) presents a summary of their work to determine KIR genomic content for use in clinical transplantation, outcomes of HLA sequencing of KIR region across a variety of methods and shares their data from recent experiments using PacBio single-molecule sequencing of fosmid libraries.

This seminar features great hands-on information and best practices for analyzing SMRT Sequencing data for eukaryotic genome assembly. Michael Schatz provides an overview of the assembly tools, provides recommendations for when to use each one, and discusses the challenges of short-read assemblies. James Gurtowski gives an in-depth overview of hybrid assemblies methods, where short read data are used used to correct errors in longer reads. Finally, Sergey Koren presents on chromosome-scale assembly, including the MinHash Alignment Process (MHAP) he developed to dramatically reduce the computational processing power required for genome assemblies.

Ulf Gyllensten from Uppsala University describes his AGBT poster showing the use of SMRT Sequencing for HLA allele typing. He says long reads are essential for sequencing the HLA genes because they link exons in a single read and do not introduce bias, as short-read sequencers can. Looking at fusion transcripts from CML patients generated information that couldn’t be achieved with any other technology, he adds.

Tim Smith of the USDA presents his work to establish a high-quality reference genome of the San Clemente goat. After generating 70-fold PacBio sequence data, the PacBio assembly proved to be far more complete than the existing draft reference genome, with contigs extending 100 times longer on average.

Robert VanBuren of the Danforth Plant Science Center and winner of the 2014 SMRT Grant Program presents a de novo assembly of the Oro grass genome (Oropetium thomaeum). The reference genome will aid scientist studying drought tolerance in common crop species, especially cereals, though comparative genomics to understand potential key genetic underpinnings for this “resurrection” trait. Initial comparative results to Brachypodium and maize are presented, as well as secondary analysis to identify key metabolic traits.

Research into a bacterial sample from World War I has revealed secrets of the dysentery-causing strain’s success and uncovered the story of the soldier behind the sample.

Lizzie Wilbanks formerly from UC Davis, discusses how longs read from SMRT Sequencing allow accurate assembly of members from the complex pink berry salt marsh community.

Jeong-Sun Seo of Macrogen and Seoul National University College of Medicine reports on sequencing many Asian genomes to better understand genetic variation in that population. He shows that identifying certain structural variants may explain diseases that disproportionately affect Asian people.

Dan Geraghty from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center presents his AGBT poster on a new PacBio-based solution to sequence extended genomic regions — in this case, KIR and MHC, two of the most variable regions of the human genome. He reports data revealing for the first time regions that may be associated with autoimmune diseases such as diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, and multiple sclerosis, and also shows that sequences were phased, complete, and highly accurate.

Neema Mayor from Anthony Nolan Research Institute offers an introduction to the challenges of characterizing the HLA region, noting that improvements in resolution have allowed scientists to dramatically expand the number of classifications used to match donors to recipients. As sequencing resolution improves, Mayor says, scientists expect to find even more polymorphisms than what has been already catalogued.