MetaTrass

MetaTrass assembles high-quality draft genomes from complex microbial communities by leveraging taxonomic information and metagenomic co-barcoded short reads to improve metagenome assembly accuracy.

Key Features:

• Binning-first assembly-later strategy: Bins microbial reads prior to assembly to reduce assembly complexity and improve species-specific reconstruction.
• Metagenomic co-barcoded short-read support: Uses co-barcoded short-read sequences to provide long-range linkage information for more accurate read grouping.
• Integration of public reference genomes and taxonomic trees: Incorporates high-quality reference genomes and taxonomic trees to guide read binning and inform assembly decisions.
• Use of long-range information: Leverages long-range linkage from co-barcoding and references to enhance assembly contiguity and accuracy.
• Reduction of false negatives in genome taxonomy: Combines reference-guided binning and long-range information to decrease false negatives during metagenome assembly.

Scientific Applications:

• Resolving genetic diversity in non-conserved regions: Enables recovery and differentiation of variant and strain-level diversity within non-conserved genomic regions of microbial communities, particularly the human gut.
• High-resolution draft genome recovery from single samples: Recovers high-quality draft genomes from individual complex metagenomic samples to support downstream genomic and taxonomic analyses.

Methodology:

Performs a "binning first and assembling later" workflow that bins reads using metagenomic co-barcoded short-read sequences and public reference genomes (including taxonomic trees and long-range information) before proceeding to assembly.