Verkko Software : For Genome Sequencing
Researchers have developed and released an innovative software ‘Verkko’ to assemble truly complete, gapless genome sequences from a variety of species.
- Verkko software is an innovative software for assembling complete, gapless diploid genomes.
- It is developed by researchers from National Institutes of Health (NIH), US.
- Verkko grew from assembling the first gapless human genome sequence, which was finished last year by the Telomere-to-Telomere (T2T) consortium, a collaborative project funded by the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), part of NIH, USA.
- Different DNA sequencing technologies generate different types of genomic puzzle pieces. Some are small and highly detailed, while others are much bigger though the image is blurry.
- Verkko compares and assembles both types of pieces to generate a complete and accurate picture.
- Verkko starts by putting together the small, detailed pieces, creating many partially assembled but disconnected segments of sequence.
- Then, Verkko compares the assembled regions with the larger, less precise pieces.
- These larger pieces serve as a framework to order the more detailed regions.
- The final product is an accurate and complete genome sequence.
- This software makes the process of assembling complete genome sequences more affordable and accessible.
- It will also accelerate efforts to generate gapless genome sequences of species commonly used in research.
