Assembly_of_highly_heterozygous_Heliconius_genomes_using_mother_father_offspring_trios

Heterozygosity generates substantial difficulties in genome assembly. To overcome these difficulties, we extended the SGA genome assembler to use trio pedigree data for phasing and error-correction during genome assembly. This approach results in substantial improvement in assembly contiguity when applied to simulated (yeast) data and to cichlid fish data, which both exhibit moderate levels of heterozygosity. However, we expect the approach to perform best when applied to assembly of highly heterozygous genomes. To demonstrate this we are sequencing three mother-father-offspring trios of the highly heterozygous Heliconius butterflies, in collaboration with Chris Jiggins' group in the Department of Zoology in Cambridge. The trios are as follows: a) H. melpomene trio; b) H. cydno trio; c) H. cydno mother, a H. melpomene father, and an F1 male offspring.