Icarus

Icarus visualizes and evaluates genomic draft assemblies from next-generation sequencing (NGS) data.

Key Features:

• Contig Alignment Viewer: Visually assesses alignment of contigs against a reference genome or other assemblies to identify misassemblies and evaluate representation of genomic regions.
• Contig Size Viewer: Displays the distribution and size variation of contigs within an assembly to evaluate completeness and fragmentation.
• QUAST integration: Incorporates QUAST genome quality assessment output to inform visualizations and assembly evaluation.

Scientific Applications:

• Draft assembly evaluation: Assessment of draft assemblies from NGS data to detect potential errors and areas requiring further refinement.
• De novo genome assembly projects: Evaluation support for de novo assemblies in both model organisms with reference genomes and non-model organisms without references.
• Comparative assembly analysis: Comparison of assemblies against reference genomes or other assemblies to assess structural consistency and assembly quality.

Methodology:

Integrates QUAST genome quality assessment output and uses data visualization to display contig alignments against references or other assemblies and contig size distributions from NGS draft assemblies.