BOL: Related items

nf-core/mag v5: Advancing Genome-Resolved Metagenomics

LEGE — Sat, 12 Sep 2026 20:27:51 -0500

Metagenomics is rapidly moving beyond short-read sequencing. With the increasing adoption of long-read technologies, researchers can generate more contiguous assemblies—but converting these reads into reliable metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) remains computationally challenging.

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?

Pilon

Rahul Nayak — Mon, 08 Feb 2016 15:56:18 -0600

Pilon is a software tool which can be used to:

Automatically improve draft assemblies
Find variation among strains, including large event detection

Pilon requires as input a FASTA file of the genome along with one or more BAM files of reads aligned to the input FASTA file. Pilon uses read alignment analysis to identify inconsistencies between the input genome and the evidence in the reads. It then attempts to make improvements to the input genome, including:

Single base differences
Small indels
Larger indel or block substitution events
Gap filling
Identification of local misassemblies, including optional opening of new gaps

More at https://github.com/broadinstitute/pilon/wiki

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/broadinstitute/pilon/wiki

PAired-eND Assembler for DNA sequences

Neel — Wed, 06 Apr 2016 05:25:34 -0500

PANDASEQ is a program to align Illumina reads, optionally with PCR primers embedded in the sequence, and reconstruct an overlapping sequence.

More at https://github.com/neufeld/pandaseq

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/neufeld/pandaseq

BUSCO: Assessing genome assembly and annotation completeness with Benchmarking Universal Single-Copy Orthologs

Anjana — Tue, 10 May 2016 07:46:24 -0500

High-throughput genomics has revolutionized biological research, however, while the number of sequenced genomes grows by the day, quality assessment of the resulting assembled sequences remains complicated and mostly limited to technical measures like N50.
BUSCO provides measures for quantitative assessment of genome assembly, gene set, and transcriptome completeness based on evolutionarily informed expectations of gene content from near-universal single-copy orthologs selected from OrthoDB.
BUSCO assessments are implemented in open-source software, with comprehensive lineage-specific sets of Benchmarking Universal Single-Copy Orthologs for arthropods, vertebrates, metazoans, fungi, eukaryotes, and bacteria.
These conserved orthologs are ideal candidates for large-scale phylogenomics studies, and the annotated BUSCO gene models built during genome assessments provide a comprehensive gene predictor training set for use as part of genome annotation pipelines.
BUSCO assessments offer intuitive metrics, based on evolutionarily informed expectations of gene content from hundreds of species, to gauge completeness of rapidly accumulating genomic data and satisfy an Iberian's quest for quality - "Busco calidad/qualidade".

Address of the bookmark: http://busco.ezlab.org/

Platanus

Jit — Fri, 13 May 2016 05:12:40 -0500

Platanus is a novel de novo sequence assembler that can reconstruct genomic sequences of
highly heterozygous diploids from massively parallel shotgun sequencing data.

The latest version is 1.2.4.

To cite Platanus, please use the following:

Kajitani R, Toshimoto K, Noguchi H, Toyoda A, Ogura Y, Okuno M, Yabana M, Harada M, Nagayasu E, Maruyama H, Kohara Y, Fujiyama A, Hayashi T, Itoh T, “Efficient de novo assembly of highly heterozygous genomes from whole-genome shotgun short reads”. Genome Res. 2014 Aug;24(8):1384-95. doi: 10.1101/gr.170720.113. [abstract | full text]

Address of the bookmark: http://platanus.bio.titech.ac.jp/

VAGUE:Velvet Assembler Graphical Front End

Jit — Fri, 24 Feb 2017 08:56:49 -0600

VAGUE is a vague acronym for "Velvet Assembler Graphical Front End", which means it is a GUI for the Velvet de novo assembler. The command line version of Velvet can be complicated for beginners to use, but VAGUE makes it clear and simple

More at http://www.vicbioinformatics.com/software.vague.shtml

Address of the bookmark: http://www.vicbioinformatics.com/software.vague.shtml

Understanding PacBio

Jitendra Narayan — Fri, 24 Feb 2017 10:17:36 -0600

This tutorial includes resources for learning more about PacBio data and bioinformatics analysis, and includes content suitable for both beginners and experts. Below are links to training modules (webinars and PowerPoint presentations) to help you get started with your data processing, as well as information for specialized applications.

Training Resources:

Specialized Applications:

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/PacificBiosciences/Bioinformatics-Training/wiki

GAM-NGS: genomic assemblies merger for next generation sequencing

Jit — Mon, 19 Dec 2016 06:07:05 -0600

GAM-NGS (Genomic Assemblies Merger for Next Generation Sequencing), whose primary goal is to merge two or more assemblies in order to enhance contiguity and correctness of both. GAM-NGS does not rely on global alignment: regions of the two assemblies representing the same genomic locus (called blocks) are identified through reads' alignments and stored in a weightedgraph. The merging phase is carried out with the help of this weighted graph that allows an optimal resolution of local problematic regions.

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/vice87/gam-ngs

BRIG

Jit — Thu, 16 Feb 2017 13:14:25 -0600

BRIG is a free cross-platform (Windows/Mac/Unix) application that can display circular comparisons between a large number of genomes, with a focus on handling genome assembly data. The application is available at:http://sourceforge.net/projects/brig

If you have any questions or comments, post them on one of the trackers on BRIG’s SourceForge page:http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=328245.

Features:

Images show similarity between a central reference sequence and other sequences as concentric rings.
BRIG will perform all BLAST comparisons and file parsing automatically via a simple GUI.
Contig boundaries and read coverage can be displayed for draft genomes; customized graphs and annotations can be displayed.
Using a user-defined set of genes as input, BRIG can display gene presence, absence, truncation or sequence variation in a set of complete genomes, draft genomes or even raw, unassembled sequence data.
BRIG also accepts SAM-formatted read-mapping files enabling genomic regions present in unassembled sequence data from multiple samples to be compared simultaneously

Address of the bookmark: http://brig.sourceforge.net/

PBSuite: Software for Long-Read Sequencing Data from PacBio

Jit — Mon, 27 Feb 2017 09:54:47 -0600

PBJelly - the genome upgrading tool.
PBHoney - the structural variation discovery tool

Both are contained within the PBSuite code found in downloads.

----- PBJelly -----
Read The Paper
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0047768

PBJelly is a highly automated pipeline that aligns long sequencing reads (such as PacBio RS reads or long 454 reads in fasta format) to high-confidence draft assembles. PBJelly fills or reduces as many captured gaps as possible to produce upgraded draft genomes.

----- PBHoney -----
Read The Paper
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2105/15/180/abstract

PBHoney is an implementation of two variant-identification approaches designed to exploit the high mappability of long reads (i.e., greater than 10,000 bp). PBHoney considers both intra-read discordance and soft-clipped tails of long reads to identify structural variants.

Address of the bookmark: https://sourceforge.net/projects/pb-jelly/