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GENOME EVOLUTION

Assembling vertebrate genomes

Nature Reviews Genetics volume 22, page 413 (2021)Cite this article

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Much progress has been made in sequencing chromosome-level reference genomes in the past 20 years. However, the introduction of more affordable and scalable genome sequencing has resulted in the assembly of lower-quality, error-prone genomes, and techniques used to assemble heterozygous genomes can create false gene duplications. In 2016, the Genome 10K (G10K) consortium established the Vertebrate Genomes Project (VGP) with a view to overcoming these issues and producing high-quality, accurate, annotated reference genomes for all 71,657 living and named vertebrate species. Reporting in Nature, Rhie et al. now share that the VGP has generated high-quality genome assemblies for 16 species over six major vertebrate lineages and describe the biological findings that these genomes have informed. A special Nature Collection on the VGP showcases additional articles describing initial results from the project.

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References

Original article

  • Rhie, A. et al. Towards complete and error-free genome assemblies of all vertebrate species. Nature 592, 737–746 (2021)

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  1. Nature Reviews Genetics

    Katharine H. Wrighton

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  1. Katharine H. Wrighton
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Correspondence to Katharine H. Wrighton.

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Genome 10K (G10K) consortium: https://genome10k.soe.ucsc.edu

Nature Collection on the VGP: https://www.nature.com/collections/cabiagjdfj

Vertebrate Genomes Project: https://vertebrategenomesproject.org

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Wrighton, K.H. Assembling vertebrate genomes. Nat Rev Genet 22, 413 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41576-021-00379-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41576-021-00379-z

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