Waite Research Institute wants to congratulate Mario Fruzangohar and his team at the Biometry Hub with their recent publication in GigaScience, “HaploMaker: An improved algorithm for rapid haplotype assembly of genomic sequences”.
Researchers from the School of Agriculture, Food and Wine have presented work on a new genome assembly software that can help produce longer and more accurate genomes than world leading competitor algorithms already available. The new algorithm, named HaploMaker, is published in the high impact open access Journal GigaScience.
The algorithm has been developed to work with genomes from diploid organisms – where two copies of chromosomes are present, one inherited from each parent. Within these paired sets gene variants arise, known as heterozygosity, and these variants may be linked to important traits such as disease or yield potential. When assembling a diploid genome from a whole genome set of sequence reads, this heterozygosity creates a computationally challenging problem due to the requirement to assemble long sequences, called a haplotype, and simultaneously determine the parental origin of the heterozygous alleles. The HaploMaker algorithm solves this problem by using mathematical graph theory, allowing it to determine parental origin of the variant alleles and accurately assemble longer haplotypes.
The Biometry team is now exploring the wider use of the software to include polyploid crops, where more than two sets of chromosomes are present.
Visit the Biometry Hub Website for more information on their specialisation in statistical methodologies for field trials, comparative and multi-factorial experiments and field sampling in application to agriculture, horticulture, oenology and food sciences.