nf-core/mag v5 (https://github.com/nf-core/mag) addresses this challenge by extending its reproducible Nextflow-based workflow for modern genome-resolved metagenomics.

A key addition is support for long-read-only metagenomic assembly and bin refinement, enabling long-read data to be processed through an integrated workflow. The release also introduces five additional binning tools, providing complementary strategies for recovering genomes from complex microbial communities.

The workflow has also expanded beyond conventional bacterial and archaeal MAGs, with improved classification of viruses and eukaryotes, together with enhanced genome-quality assessment.

Conceptually, the workflow brings together:

Reads → QC → Assembly → Binning → Bin refinement → Taxonomic classification → MAG quality assessment

The real strength of nf-core/mag is not any single algorithm, but the integration and reproducibility of multiple tools within a standardized workflow. This is particularly important for large-scale metagenomic studies where software versions, parameters, databases and computational environments can strongly influence results.

After seven years of development involving multiple curator teams and the wider nf-core community, v5 demonstrates how community-driven workflow development can keep metagenomic analysis aligned with rapidly evolving sequencing technologies.

The future of genome-resolved metagenomics is not simply longer reads—it is better integration of assembly, binning, refinement and quality control within reproducible computational workflows.

Read the full paper in Bioinformatics https://academic.oup.com/bioinformatics/article/42/9/btag628/8770536?

Applications with complete bio-data from candidates possessing the required qualifications are invited for the posts of JRF (2) and Project Assistant (1) in

DBT, GOI-funded research project “Next Generation Sequencing (NGS)- based de novo assembly of expressed transcripts and genome information of Orchids in North-East India” in DBT’s Twinning programme for NE as per DBT sanction order and norms.

(i) JRF(2 nos.):

Qualifications: M.Tech/M.Sc in Life Sciences/ Botany/ Zoology/Biochemistry/ Biotechnology/ Bioinformatics; Desirable: Aptitude for Bioinformatics and Computer Programming/ Next generation sequencing data analysis

(ii) Project Assistant (1 no.):

Qualifications: Graduation in Science, Desirable: Experience of working in a Life Science/Plant Biotechnology lab. and familiarity with computers and field work viz. collection of samples.

The applications through email bicnehu@gmail.com or post must reach the undersigned
within 15 days from the date of publication of this advertisement. The advertised posts are purely temporary for the duration of the project and subject to availability of the funds from DBT. The appointment does not confer any entitlement or right over the posts for absorption in the University service.

Advertisement: www.nehu.ac.in/Advertisements/BICAdvtPV_200115.pdf

To address the challenges of describing and estimating virodiversity, a team of investigators from Center for Infection and Immunity (CII) and EcoHealth Alliance began in jungles of Bangladesh - home to the flying fox.

Reference:

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/news-by-industry/et-cetera/mammals-harbour-at-least-320000-new-viruses/articleshow/22253268.cms

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23932400

Organiser: Christine Carrington (University of the West Indies - UWI, St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago)
Co-organisers: Anne-Mieke Vandamme, Philippe Lemey (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium), Marco Salemi, Mattia Prosperi (University of Florida, Gainesville, USA) and Karen E. Nelson (J. Craig Venter Institute, Rockville, USA)

Requests for information directly to:
Christine Carrington
Department of Preclinical Sciences
Faculty of Medical Sciences
University of the West Indies (UWI)
St. Augustine
Trinidad and Tobago
Telephone: +1-868-6452640 ext. 5009, +1-868-6848803
Fax: +1-868-6621873
E-mail: veme2015@sta.uwi.edu

Deadline for receipt of applications by local organiser: 15 March 2015
CALL FOR APPLICATIONS NOW OPEN
http://www.icgeb.org/course-application-trinidad-and-tobago-2015.html

http://rega.kuleuven.be/cev/veme-workshop/2015

Now a day, geneticists have developed a language of their own. They are pouring lots of money and energy to read the entire genomic text and understand the gods own code ATGC. It is somewhat fascinating, not only for geneticist but also for non-biologist to know that there are several conserved blocks in genome which remain conserved over hundreds of millions of years. There have been several researches on conserved blocks and non-conserved regions to understand the mechanism and importance of all these regions (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2675965/). The finding indicates conservation and rearrangements of certain evolutionary important genes play an important role in evolution/adaptive changes (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v491/n7424/abs/nature11622.html https://academic.oup.com/gbe/article/8/8/2442/2198198/Novel-Insights-into-Chromosome-Evolution-in-Birds , http://science.sciencemag.org/content/346/6215/1311).

But the puzzle remains open, how to correctly define the synteny (presence of two or more genes on the same chromosome) and conserved synteny (presence of two or more genes on chromosome of each of the two species) on several genomes.

Figure: Image generated with Evolution Highway (EH) tool http://eh-demo.ncsa.illinois.edu/ 

Keeping the new approach to define conserved synteny in mind there have been various algorithms developed to identify the conserved homologous synteny blocks (HSB) amongst species. Some of them which were commonly used for synteny detections are:

SyntenyTracker ( http://www-app.igb.uiuc.edu/labs/lewin/donthu/Synteny_assign/html/),

SyntenyTracker was shown to be an efficient and accurate automated tool for defining HSBs using datasets that may contain minor errors resulting from limitations in map construction methodologies.

CoGe (http://genomevolution.org/CoGe/SynFind.pl )

Satsuma (http://evomics.org/learning/genomics/satsuma/)

Cinteny (http://cinteny.cchmc.org/) ,

Cinteny server can be used for finding regions syntenic across multiple genomes and measuring the extent of genome rearrangement using reversal distance as a measure.

OrthoCluster (http://krono.act.uji.es/noticias/orthocluster-a-new-tool-for-mining-syntenic-blocks)

A new tool for mining syntenic blocks in comparative genomics

SynMap (http://genomevolution.org/wiki/index.php/SynMap),

SyMAP (http://www.symapdb.org/)

SyMAP (Synteny Mapping and Analysis Program) v4.0 is an automated system for identifying and displaying genome synteny alignments. The genomes may be represented by sequenced chromosomes (pseudomolecules), by draft sequence contigs, or by FPC physical maps (with BAC-end or marker sequence).

http://genomevolution.org/CoGe/SynMap.pl

RegionMiner (http://www.genomatix.de/online_help/help_regionminer/orthologous.html)

SyntenyMiner is being developed as an application to visualize and interrogate comparisons among multiple complete genome sequences. http://syntenyminer.sourceforge.net/

AutoGRAPH ( http://autograph.genouest.org/),

AutoGRAPH is an integrated web server for multi-species comparative genomic analysis. It is designed for constructing and visualizing synteny maps between two or three species, determination and display of macrosynteny and microsynteny relationships among species, and for highlighting evolutionary breakpoints.

SynChro(http://www.lgm.upmc.fr/CHROnicle/SynChro.html)

SynChro is a tool designed to define conserved synteny blocks. It reconstructs synteny blocks between pairwise comparison of multiple genomes. The reconstructed synteny blocks may overlap each other, be included in one another or duplicated due to micro-rearrangements.

SyntenyView ( http://www.cbs.dtu.dk/dtucourse/cookbooks/nikob/exercises/gf1_output_5.html),

Ensembl 'SyntenyView' shows conservation of large-scale gene order between species pairs. A brief summary of the calculation method appears at the bottom of this help page.  The left of a 'SyntenyView' page displays a diagram of chromosomes with blocks of conserved synteny. The right of a page shows homology matches between individual genes within syntenic blocks.

SynBrowse ( http://www.synbrowse.org/),

SynBrowse (Synteny Browser) is a generic sequence comparison tool for visualizing genome alignments both within and between species. It is intended to help scientists study and analyze synteny, homologous genes and other conserved elements between sequences. This software is useful in studying genome duplication and evolution. It can also aid in identifying uncharacterized genes, putative regulatory elements and novel structural features of study species by comparing to a well annotated reference sequence, thus enabling genome curators to refine and edit annotations of species that have incomplete genome annotations.

Sibelia (http://arxiv.org/abs/1307.7941).

A comparative genomic tool: It assists biologists in analysing the genomic variations that correlate with pathogens, or the genomic changes that help microorganisms adapt in different environments. Sibelia will also be helpful for the evolutionary and genome rearrangement studies for multiple strains of microorganisms.

GSV (http://cas-bioinfo.cas.unt.edu/gsv/homepage.php)

Genome Synteny Viewer allows users to upload files which contain synteny regions between two or more genomes and interactively visualize the synteny between them. GSV also allows users to upload annotation files to visualize annotated regions in addition to synteny regions.

MicroSyn (http://www.lgm.upmc.fr/CHROnicle/SynChro.html)

MicroSyn software as a means of detecting microsynteny in adjacent genomic regions surrounding genes in gene families. MicroSyn searches for conserved, flanking colinear homologous gene pairs between two genomic fragments to determine the relationship between two members in a gene family.

SynOrth (http://synorth.genereg.net/)

Synorth [s n ôrth], named in combination of "synteny" and "ortholog", is designed for the study of evolutionary changes of genomic regulatory blocks (GRBs) in vertebrate genomes, and especially the changes following the whole-genome duplication in teleost fish, by tracing the ortholog genes gain and loss in ancient synteny blocks.

SyDiG (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21441096)

Uncovering Synteny in Distant Genomes.

MapSynteny  (http://www.automatizacionysistemas.com/download.html)

MapSynteny is a macro in MS Excel® able to create images to show the relationship between genetic maps and large sequences (scaffolds, chromosomes, BACs, etc.). Based on tab – delimited BLAST results and some formulas, a suitable image of syntenic relationships or physical mapping can be obtained. http://www.automatizacionysistemas.com/Poster_MapSynteny.pdf

One of the best synteny tutorial for beginer @ http://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/synteny-inferring-ancestral-genomes-44022

Reference:

http://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/synteny-inferring-ancestral-genomes-44022

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v491/n7424/full/nature11622.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synteny

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2675965/

Posts Research Associate

Date & Time of Interview 18th Feb 2015 at 10.00 a.m.

Project Name “Centre for Agricultural Bioinformatics (CABin)”

Duration 12th Plan (2012-2017) / co-terminus with the project 12th Plan (2012-2017) / co-terminus with the project

Essential Qualification Ph.d / M.Sc./ M.Phil (Bioinformatics) With 1st division or 60% marks or equivalent overall grade point average with at least two years of research experience in the relevant subject.

Technician

B.Tech. or Master degree in computer science/Computer Engineering /MCA or equivalent. Desirable qualification: Experience in Java/ C++/ PHP/ PERL/ Python etc. based application development using Linux, Apache and MySQL/Oracle.

Emoluments Rs.24000/- p.m. + 30% HRA for Ph.D holders / Rs.23000/- p.m. + 30% HRA for Master Degree holders A consolidated pay Rs.25000/- per month.

Age Limit Maximum 40 years for men and 45 years for women as on date of interview.

Age limits are relaxable for SC / ST / OBC candidates as per rules.

Maximum 40 years for men and 45 years for women as on date of interview.

Age limits are relaxable for SC / ST / OBC candidates as per rules.

Eligible Candidates may send their Curriculum Vitae along with the contact numbers to ashok@ciba.res.in on or before 13-02-2015.

Candidates selected after initial screening will be called for interview.

Advertisement: www.ciba.res.in/attachments/jobs/CABin-3006.pdf

Please report new whole genome alignment tools under comment sections.

Address of the bookmark: http://www.cs.utoronto.ca/~brudno/721.full.pdf

Qualification required: PhD in Life Sciences/ Molecular Biology/ Bioinformatics or related discipline.

Desirable Qualification:

1. Candidates having experience in molecular biology techniques and must be well versed with bioinformatics tool or expert in relevant fields will be preferred.
2. The candidate should have good communication skill, knowledge about designing experiments and analyzing data.
3. Sense of initiative, autonomy, organization and thoroughness, good relation qualities.
Remuneration: 2000USD per month.

Last date of submitting the complete applications furnishing Bio-data is 10th February, 2015.

Interested candidates should send their resume including all personal as well as academic details to the principal investigator Prof Seung-Won Park (email:microsw@cu.ac.kr)

The shortlisted candidates will be intimated within February 2015.