RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 OPERA-LG: Efficient and exact scaffolding of large, repeat-rich eukaryotic genomes with performance guarantees JF bioRxiv FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory SP 020230 DO 10.1101/020230 A1 Song Gao A1 Denis Bertrand A1 Niranjan Nagarajan YR 2015 UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2015/06/01/020230.abstract AB The assembly of large, repeat-rich eukaryotic genomes continues to represent a significant challenge in genomics. While long-read technologies have made the high-quality assembly of small, microbial genomes increasingly feasible, data generation can be prohibitively expensive for larger genomes. Fundamental advances in assembly algorithms are thus essential to exploit the characteristics of short and long-read sequencing technologies to consistently and reliably provide high-qualities assemblies in a cost-efficient manner. Here we present a scalable, exact algorithm (OPERA-LG) for the scaffold assembly of large, repeat-rich genomes that exhibits almost an order of magnitude improvement over the state-of-the-art programs in both correctness (>5X on average) and contiguity (>10X). This provides a systematic approach for combining data from different sequencing technologies, as well as a rigorous framework for scaffolding of repetitive sequences. OPERA-LG represents the first in a new class of algorithms that can efficiently assemble large genomes while providing formal guarantees about assembly quality, providing an avenue for systematic augmentation and improvement of 1000s of existing draft eukaryotic genome assemblies.