The Atlas Genome Assembly System

  1. Paul Havlak1,
  2. Rui Chen1,
  3. K. James Durbin,
  4. Amy Egan,
  5. Yanru Ren,
  6. Xing-Zhi Song,
  7. George M. Weinstock, and
  8. Richard A. Gibbs2
  1. Human Genome Sequencing Center, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas 77030, USA

Abstract

Atlas is a suite of programs developed for assembly of genomes by a “combined approach” that uses DNA sequence reads from both BACs and whole-genome shotgun (WGS) libraries. The BAC clones afford advantages of localized assembly with reduced computational load, and provide a robust method for dealing with repeated sequences. Inclusion of WGS sequences facilitates use of different clone insert sizes and reduces data production costs. A core function of Atlas software is recruitment of WGS sequences into appropriate BACs based on sequence overlaps. Because construction of consensus sequences is from local assembly of these reads, only small (<0.1%) units of the genome are assembled at a time. Once assembled, each BAC is used to derive a genomic layout. This “sequence-based” growth of the genome map has greater precision than with non-sequence-based methods. Use of BACs allows correction of artifacts due to repeats at each stage of the process. This is aided by ancillary data such as BAC fingerprint, other genomic maps, and syntenic relations with other genomes. Atlas was used to assemble a draft DNA sequence of the rat genome; its major components including overlapper and split-scaffold are also being used in pure WGS projects.

Footnotes

  • [The following individuals kindly provided reagents, samples, or unpublished information as indicated in the paper: the Rat Genome Sequencing Project Consortium, Gerard Bouffard, and Eric Green.]

  • Article and publication are at http://www.genome.org/cgi/doi/10.1101/gr.2264004.

  • 1 These authors contributed equally to this work.

  • 2 Corresponding author. E-MAIL agibbs{at}bcm.tmc.edu; FAX (713) 798-5741.

    • Accepted February 11, 2004.
    • Received December 10, 2003.
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