Genome assemblers are tools which aim to reconstruct an original genome from sequencing reads. A ‘perfect’ assembler would take only reads as input and output a complete, error-free genome. This goal is usually impossible with short read sequencing, but long reads from Oxford Nanopore sequencers bring it tantalisingly close. While long reads are enormously helpful for assembly, issues remain. In this talk, I will describe the various ways an assembly can fail: sequence inaccuracy, incomplete or misassembled sequences, and lost variation. For each, I will discuss the underlying causes and what future developments are necessary to overcome them and bring us closer to perfect assemblies.
Flongle, GridION, MinION, MinIT, PromethION, and VolTRAX are currently for research use only.
