BleTIES: annotation of natural genome editing in ciliates using long read sequencing

Ciliates are single-celled eukaryotes that eliminate specific, interspersed DNA sequences (internally eliminated sequences, IESs) from their genomes during development. These are challenging to annotate and assemble because IES-containing sequences are typically much less abundant in the cell than those without, and IES sequences themselves often contain repetitive and low-complexity sequences. Long-read sequencing technologies from Pacific Biosciences and Oxford Nanopore have the potential to reconstruct longer IESs than has been possible with short reads but require a different assembly strategy. Here we present BleTIES, a software toolkit for detecting, assembling, and analyzing IESs using mapped long reads. Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

Automated summary

Ciliates are single-celled eukaryotes that can eliminate specific DNA sequences. Long-read sequencing technologies offer the potential to reconstruct longer IESs, but require a different assembly strategy.