BOL: Related items

NCBI Datasets pages

BioStar — Wed, 12 Jul 2023 06:29:31 -0500

Update! Assembly and Genome record pages now redirect to new NCBI Datasets pages. NCBI Datasets is a new resource that makes it easier to find and download genome data. Learn more: https://ncbiinsights.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2023/07/11/ncbi-datasets-genome-assembly-pages/ #NCBICGR

Effective July 10, 2023, NCBI’s Assembly and Genome record pages now redirect to new NCBI Datasets pages. As previously announced, these updates are part of our ongoing effort to modernize and improve your user experience. NCBI Datasets is a new resource that makes it easier to find and download genome data.  

The following pages have been updated:

The NCBI Assembly record pages now redirect to the new NCBI Datasets Genome record pages that describe assembled genomes and provide links to related NCBI tools such as Genome Data Viewer and BLAST. 
The NCBI Genome record pages now redirect to the NCBI Datasets Taxonomy record pages that provide a taxonomy-focused portal to genes, genomes, and additional NCBI resources.

During this transition, you will have the option to return to the legacy Genome and Assembly record pages. We will remove the legacy pages in early 2024. 

Step-by-Step Guide to Running Genome Assembly

Abhi — Fri, 13 Dec 2024 11:35:55 -0600

Genome assembly is a critical process in bioinformatics, enabling the reconstruction of an organism's genome from short DNA sequence reads. Whether you’re working on a new microbial genome or a complex eukaryotic organism, this guide will walk you through the steps of genome assembly using state-of-the-art tools and best practices.

What is Genome Assembly?

Genome assembly involves piecing together short DNA sequence reads generated by sequencing platforms (e.g., Illumina, PacBio, Oxford Nanopore) into longer, contiguous sequences called contigs. This can be performed as:

De Novo Assembly: Without a reference genome.
Reference-Guided Assembly: Using a reference genome to guide the assembly process.

Step 1: Preparing Your Data

Before starting the assembly, ensure that your raw sequencing data is high quality.

Input Data
- Short Reads: Illumina sequencing generates short, accurate reads ideal for scaffolding.
- Long Reads: PacBio and Nanopore sequencing provide long reads for resolving repetitive regions.
Quality Control (QC)
Use tools like FastQC or MultiQC to assess the quality of your reads:

fastqc reads.fastq multiqc .

Look for issues like low-quality bases, adapter contamination, or overrepresented sequences.
Read Trimming and Filtering
Trim low-quality bases and adapters using Trimmomatic or Cutadapt:

trimmomatic PE reads_R1.fastq reads_R2.fastq trimmed_R1.fastq trimmed_R2.fastq \ ILLUMINACLIP:adapters.fa:2:30:10 LEADING:3 TRAILING:3 SLIDINGWINDOW:4:20 MINLEN:36

Step 2: Choosing an Assembly Strategy

Select an assembly strategy based on your data type:

Short-Read Assemblers:
- SPAdes: Popular for microbial genomes.
- Velvet: Fast for smaller genomes.
Long-Read Assemblers:
- Canu: Ideal for long-read datasets.
- Flye: Versatile for small and large genomes.
Hybrid Assemblers:
- MaSuRCA: Combines short and long reads.
- Unicycler: Optimized for bacterial genomes.

Step 3: Running the Assembly

3.1. SPAdes (Short-Read Assembly)

SPAdes is an excellent choice for small genomes, such as bacteria.

spades.py -1 trimmed_R1.fastq -2 trimmed_R2.fastq -o spades_output

The output includes assembled contigs (contigs.fasta) and scaffolds (scaffolds.fasta).

3.2. Canu (Long-Read Assembly)

Canu is designed for high-error long reads from PacBio or Nanopore.

canu -p genome -d canu_output genomeSize=4.7m -nanopore-raw reads.fastq

The output will be in canu_output/genome.contigs.fasta.

3.3. Hybrid Assembly with Unicycler

Unicycler combines short and long reads for improved assemblies.

unicycler -1 trimmed_R1.fastq -2 trimmed_R2.fastq -l long_reads.fastq -o unicycler_output

Step 4: Assessing Assembly Quality

After assembly, evaluate its quality using the following tools:

QUAST
QUAST generates assembly statistics, such as N50, genome size, and GC content:

quast contigs.fasta -o quast_output
BUSCO
BUSCO checks genome completeness by identifying conserved genes:

busco -i contigs.fasta -o busco_output -l fungi_odb10 -m genome
Assembly Graph Visualization
Visualize assembly graphs with Bandage:

Bandage load assembly_graph.gfa

Step 5: Post-Assembly Steps

Polishing
Improve assembly accuracy using tools like Pilon (for short reads) or Racon (for long reads).

racon long_reads.fasta mapped_reads.sam contigs.fasta > polished_contigs.fasta
Scaffolding
Link contigs into scaffolds using tools like SSPACE or Opera-LG if required.
Annotation
Annotate the assembled genome using Prokka for prokaryotes or Maker for eukaryotes.

prokka --outdir annotation_output --prefix genome contigs.fasta

Step 6: Sharing and Archiving

Submit to Public Repositories
Share your assembly in databases like NCBI GenBank, ENA, or DDBJ.
Metadata Preparation
Include detailed metadata for your submission, such as organism name, sequencing platform, and coverage.

Best Practices

Always perform quality checks at each stage to ensure data integrity.
Use multiple tools to cross-validate results when working with complex genomes.
Document parameters and software versions for reproducibility.

Conclusion

Genome assembly is a powerful process that transforms raw sequencing data into a coherent representation of an organism’s genome. By following this step-by-step guide, you can successfully assemble genomes and uncover valuable biological insights. Whether you’re assembling a microbial genome or tackling the complexities of a eukaryotic genome, these tools and strategies will set you on the path to success.

AirLift, a methodology and tool for comprehensively moving mappings and annotations from one genome to another similar genome

Jit — Mon, 23 Dec 2019 10:20:13 -0600

We propose AirLift, a methodology and tool for comprehensively moving mappings and annotations from one genome to another similar genome while maintaining the accuracy of a full mapper.

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/CMU-SAFARI/AirLift

PHYMMBL

Jit — Mon, 10 Oct 2016 08:56:34 -0500

Metagenomics sequencing projects collect samples of DNA from uncharacterized environments that may contain hundreds or even thousands of species. One of the main challenges in analyzing a metagenome is phylogenetic classification of raw sequence reads into groups representing the same or similar species. Such classification is a useful prerequisite for genome assembly and for analysis of the biological diversity present in a sample. The newest sequencing technologies have simultaneously made metagenomics easier, by making the sequencing process faster, and more difficult, by producing shorter read lengths than previous technologies. Methods for classifying sequences as short as 100 base pairs (bp) have until now been relatively inaccurate, requiring metagenomics projects to use older, long-read technologies. Phymm, a new classification approach for metagenomics data which uses interpolated Markov models (IMMs) to taxonomically classify DNA sequences, can accurately classify reads as short as 100 bp. Its accuracy for short reads represents a significant leap forward over previous composition-based classification methods. PhymmBL (rhymes with "thimble"), the hybrid classifier included in this distribution which combines analysis from both Phymm and BLAST, produces even higher accuracy.

Address of the bookmark: http://www.cbcb.umd.edu/software/phymm/

minialign: fast and accurate alignment tool for PacBio and Nanopore long reads

Jit — Thu, 24 May 2018 08:33:26 -0500

Minialign is a little bit fast and moderately accurate nucleotide sequence alignment tool designed for PacBio and Nanopore long reads. It is built on three key algorithms, minimizer-based index of the minimap overlapper, array-based seed chaining, and SIMD-parallel Smith-Waterman-Gotoh extension.

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/ocxtal/minialign

Rebaler: program for conducting reference-based assemblies using long reads.

Jit — Tue, 18 Sep 2018 07:52:41 -0500

Rebaler is a program for conducting reference-based assemblies using long reads. It relies mainly on minimap2 for alignment and Racon for making consensus sequences.

I made Rebaler for bacterial genomes (specifically for the task of testing basecallers). It should in principle work for non-bacterial genomes as well, but I haven't tested it.

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/rrwick/Rebaler

Jabba: Hybrid Error Correction for Long Sequencing Reads

Jit — Fri, 05 Jan 2018 03:58:14 -0600

Jabba is a hybrid error correction tool to correct third generation (PacBio / ONT) sequencing data, using second generation (Illumina) data.

Input

Jabba takes as input a concatenated de Bruijn graph and a set of sequences:

the de Bruijn graph should appear in fasta format with 1 entry per node, the meta information should be in the format:
>NODE
the set of sequences should be in fasta or fastq format. These sequences will be corrected (e.g. PacBio reads). The corrections will be written to a file Jabba fasta.
The output is a file in fasta format with corrections of the long reads, and additionally a file in the input format containing uncorrected reads.

https://github.com/biointec/jabba/wiki

https://almob.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13015-016-0075-7

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/biointec/jabba

Porechop: tool for finding and removing adapters from Oxford Nanopore reads

Rahul Nayak — Tue, 29 May 2018 07:33:44 -0500

Porechop is a tool for finding and removing adapters from Oxford Nanopore reads. Adapters on the ends of reads are trimmed off, and when a read has an adapter in its middle, it is treated as chimeric and chopped into separate reads. Porechop performs thorough alignments to effectively find adapters, even at low sequence identity.

Porechop also supports demultiplexing of Nanopore reads that were barcoded with the Native Barcoding Kit, PCR Barcoding Kit or Rapid Barcoding Kit.

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/rrwick/Porechop

Rainbow: an integrated tool for efficient clustering and assembling RAD-seq reads

Rahul Nayak — Fri, 19 Oct 2018 08:23:42 -0500

Rainbow is developed to provide an ultra-fast and memory-efficient solution to clustering and assembling short reads produced by RAD-seq. First, Rainbow clusters reads using a spaced seed method. Then, Rainbow implements a heterozygote calling like strategy to divide potential groups into haplotypes in a top–down manner. And along a guided tree, it iteratively merges sibling leaves in a bottom–up manner if they are similar enough. Here, the similarity is defined by comparing the 2nd reads of a RAD segment. This approach tries to collapse heterozygote while discriminate repetitive sequences. At last, Rainbow uses a greedy algorithm to locally assemble merged reads into contigs. Rainbow not only outputs the optimal but also suboptimal assembly results. Based on simulation and a real guppy RAD-seq data, we show that Rainbow is more competent than the other tools in dealing with RAD-seq data

Address of the bookmark: https://sourceforge.net/projects/bio-rainbow/files/

Comparison of Short Read De Novo Alignment Algorithms

Rahul Agarwal — Wed, 21 Aug 2013 07:56:01 -0500

Excellent article to introduce different sequencing methods along with tools for de novo assembly of sequencing reads and their relevant references.

Title: Comparison of Short Read De Novo Alignment Algorithms

Author: Nikhil Gopal

Address of the bookmark: http://biochem218.stanford.edu/Projects%202011/Gopal%202011.pdf