PRONAME: a user-friendly pipeline to process long-read nanopore metabarcoding data by generating high-quality consensus sequences
BackgroundThe study of sample taxonomic composition has evolved from direct observations and labor-intensive morphological studies to different DNA sequencing methodologies. Most of these studies leverage the metabarcoding approach, which involves the amplification of a small taxonomically-informati...
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| Main Authors: | , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Frontiers Media S.A.
2024-12-01
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| Series: | Frontiers in Bioinformatics |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fbinf.2024.1483255/full |
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| Summary: | BackgroundThe study of sample taxonomic composition has evolved from direct observations and labor-intensive morphological studies to different DNA sequencing methodologies. Most of these studies leverage the metabarcoding approach, which involves the amplification of a small taxonomically-informative portion of the genome and its subsequent high-throughput sequencing. Recent advances in sequencing technology brought by Oxford Nanopore Technologies have revolutionized the field, enabling portability, affordable cost and long-read sequencing, therefore leading to a significant increase in taxonomic resolution. However, Nanopore sequencing data exhibit a particular profile, with a higher error rate compared with Illumina sequencing, and existing bioinformatics pipelines for the analysis of such data are scarce and often insufficient, requiring specialized tools to accurately process long-read sequences.ResultsWe present PRONAME (PROcessing NAnopore MEtabarcoding data), an open-source, user-friendly pipeline optimized for processing raw Nanopore sequencing data. PRONAME includes precompiled databases for complete 16S sequences (Silva138 and Greengenes2) and a newly developed and curated database dedicated to bacterial 16S-ITS-23S operon sequences. The user can also provide a custom database if desired, therefore enabling the analysis of metabarcoding data for any domain of life. The pipeline significantly improves sequence accuracy, implementing innovative error-correction strategies and taking advantage of the new sequencing chemistry to produce high-quality duplex reads. Evaluations using a mock community have shown that PRONAME delivers consensus sequences demonstrating at least 99.5% accuracy with standard settings (and up to 99.7%), making it a robust tool for genomic analysis of complex multi-species communities.ConclusionPRONAME meets the challenges of long-read Nanopore data processing, offering greater accuracy and versatility than existing pipelines. By integrating Nanopore-specific quality filtering, clustering and error correction, PRONAME produces high-precision consensus sequences. This brings the accuracy of Nanopore sequencing close to that of Illumina sequencing, while taking advantage of the benefits of long-read technologies. |
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| ISSN: | 2673-7647 |