Monday 14 February 2011

How much data for Metagenomics?

Interesting read for bioinformaticians doing metagenomics (the title says it all).
Within it, it asks the very pertinent question of How much data? However, the suggested data size of 100 Mbp is for Sanger Sequencing. Any readers with comments on the suggested data size for NGS?


How Much Sequence Data?

A common question asked by researchers embarking on their first metagenomic analysis is how much sequence data they should request or allocate for their project. Unlike genome projects, metagenomes have no fixed end point, i.e., a completed genome.......For example, if a dominant population represents 10% of the total community and 100 Mbp is obtained, then this population is expected to be represented by 10 Mbp, assuming completely random sampling of the community. If the average genome size of individuals in this population is 2 Mbp, then an average of 5x coverage of the composite population genome will be expected. To place this in perspective, 6x to 8x coverage of microbial isolates is a common target to obtain a draft genome suitable for finishing.

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