#ABACBS2021 Lightning talk - DepthSizer and DepthKopy: genome size and copy number prediction using single-copy long-read depth profiles

Tune in for the ABACBS 2021 lightning talks this morning to hear about our applications of long reads to genome size and copy number prediction. For more information, you can read the NSW Waratah genome paper pre-print or visit the GitHub pages for DepthSizer and DepthKopy.

Richard J Edwards, Stephanie H Chen, Katarina C Stuart, Mark M Tanaka, Jason G Bragg.

DepthSizer and DepthKopy: genome size and copy number prediction using single-copy long-read depth profiles

A fundamental part of any genome project is establishing the genome size of the organism being sequenced. The gold standard for genome size measurement is flow cytometry, but this is not available to all groups and can give surprisingly variable results. Popular bioinformatic approaches predict genome size using kmer frequency profiles from high-accuracy (e.g. illumina or hifi) sequencing reads, or the mean depth of coverage reads mapped to an assembly. Both of these approaches can be adversely affected by repetitive regions of the genome. Mean sequencing depth is also highly reliant on assembly completeness.

Here, we present DepthSizer (https://github.com/slimsuite/depthsizer), which refines this approach by estimating sequencing depth based on single-copy complete BUSCO genes. DepthSizer works on the principle that genuine single-copy regions will tend towards the same, true, single-copy read depth. In contrast, assembly errors, collapsed repeats within those genes, or incorrect BUSCO predictions, will give inconsistent read depth deviations. The modal read depth across single-copy BUSCO genes, calculated from a depth density profile of these regions, should therefore provide a good estimate of the true depth of coverage. The method is benchmarked on model organism data and corrections for possible contamination, biases/inconsistencies in read mapping and/or raw read insertion/deletion error profiles are discussed. We also present DepthKopy (https://github.com/slimsuite/depthkopy), which uses the same read depth approach to estimate the copy number of assembly regions. This can be useful for identifying haplotigs, and collapsed repeat regions.

Keywords: BUSCO, Genome Assembly, Genomics, ONT, PacBio, copy number variants