Assembling sequencing data with MacVector and Assembler

MacVector has a software plugin called Assembler that integrates directly into the DNA sequence analysis toolkit and provides DNA sequence assembly functionality. Dealing with sequencing reads has never been easier.

MacVector includes no less than five different assemblers just a few mouse clicks away from your sequencing reads. Phrap assembles Sanger sequencing reads or existing contigs, while there are three separate NGS de novo assemblers – Velvet for short read datasets, Flye for Nanopore and PacBio long reads and SPAdes for mixed assemblies. For reference assembly Bowtie2 can map millions of sequencing reads against genomic reference sequences and is ideal for RNASeq gene expression analysis data too.

Assembler is tightly integrated into MacVector. It’s easy to bring sequencing reads into MacVector, and it’s just as easy to directly design primers for a contig, run BLAST searches on a contig, and much more, right from your desktop!

To assemble various types of sequencing reads, follow these steps.

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    • Choose File | New | Assembly Project to create a new empty project file.

Then follow one of the following:

To create a de novo assembly from Sanger reads

    • Click on the Add Reads tool bar button, then select the sequence files you wish to assemble and click on the Open button. Read(s) file(s) can also be drag and dropped on the open Assembly Project window.
    • Click Phred to basecall sequences in the project. Note that if no sequences are selected, phred will be run on ALL of the files in the project.
    • Click Phrap to assemble the reads.

To create a de novo assembly from NGS datasets

    • Click on the Add Reads tool bar button, then select the sequence files you wish to assemble and click on the Open button. File(s) can also be drag and dropped on the open Assembly Project window. Paired reads files are automatically detected.
    • Choose either SPAdes or Velvet to assemble the reads.

To create a de novo assembly from Nanopore or Pacbio datasets

  • Click on the Add Reads tool bar button, then select the sequence files you wish to assemble and click on the Open button. File(s) can also be drag and dropped on the open Assembly Project window. Paired reads files are automatically detected.
  • Double click on the reads and ensure they are correctly flagged as Pacbio reads.
  • Choose Flye to assemble the reads.

To create a reference assembly

  • Click the Add Reads button, then select the sequence files you wish to assemble and click on the Open button.
  • Click Add Ref, select the sequence file(s) you wish to align the reads against and click on the Open button.
  • Click Bowtie to map all read files against all of the reference sequences in the project.

Not sure if you have Assembler? Choose MacVector | About MacVector. If the screen that appears says MacVector with Assembler, Pro Edition then you have it. If not, you can sign up for a fully functional 21 day trial version

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