An Investigation into Assemblers for DNA Sequencing

Sequence assembly is a vital stage in the sequencing of a genome and there have been many tools developed to produce accurate se- quences from many short reads. It is a diverse and fragmented field, with many competing players. This paper aims to provide an overview of the field and also explain the details of specific approaches. It be- gins by looking at the need for sequence assembly, and some of the techniques and algorithms that are used to carry it out. It examines the data that is available for tools to use, and the challenges such as errors and repeats that must be overcome to generate a sequence which has high accuracy. Particular attention is paid to the Euler as- sembler, which maps the genetic information onto a de Bruijn graph. Finally the future of the field is explored, with reference to the most recently released technologies and also those that are more distant, such as the use of nanopores.