Discovery and assembly of repeat family pseudomolecules from sparse genomic sequence data using the Assisted Automated Assembler of Repeat Families (AAARF) algorithm

Jeremy D DeBarry¹ , Renyi Liu¹^,2 and Jeffrey L Bennetzen¹

¹Department of Genetics, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602-7223, USA

²Current Address: Department of Botany and Plant Sciences, University of California, Riverside, CA 92521, USA

author email corresponding author email

BMC Bioinformatics 2008, 9:235doi:10.1186/1471-2105-9-235


Published:	13 May 2008

Abstract

Background

Higher eukaryotic genomes are typically large, complex and filled with both genes and multiple classes of repetitive DNA. The repetitive DNAs, primarily transposable elements, are a rapidly evolving genome component that can provide the raw material for novel selected functions and also indicate the mechanisms and history of genome evolution in any ancestral lineage. Despite their abundance, universality and significance, studies of genomic repeat content have been largely limited to analyses of the repeats in fully sequenced genomes.

Results

In order to facilitate a broader range of repeat analyses, the Assisted Automated Assembler of Repeat Families algorithm has been developed. This program, written in PERL and with numerous adjustable parameters, identifies sequence overlaps in small shotgun sequence datasets and walks them out to create long pseudomolecules representing the most abundant repeats in any genome. Testing of this program in maize indicated that it found and assembled all of the major repeats in one or more pseudomolecules, including coverage of the major Long Terminal Repeat retrotransposon families. Both Sanger sequence and 454 datasets were appropriate.

Conclusion

These results now indicate that hundreds of higher eukaryotic genomes can be efficiently characterized for the nature, abundance and evolution of their major repetitive DNA components.