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Is it ok to map RNA-seq reads on prokaryotic reference genome with bowtie2 ?

Hi everyone, it is usually recommend to use TopHat to map reads on reference genome due to intron's reason. However there is no intron in prokaryotes.

So I would like to know if it is ok to use bowtie2 instead of TopHap under this condition?

Best

rna-seq alignment genome

It is probably even better to use HISAT2:

HISAT2 is a successor to both HISAT and TopHat2. We recommend that the HISAT and TopHat2 users switch to HISAT2. 

HISAT, HISAT2, and TopHat2 are splice aware aligners. The OP is not interested in splicing-aware aligners, hence the question being about bowtie2 and not Tophat, which he has rightly eliminated as being inappropriate already..

It probably wouldn't make much of a difference on the final result.

Anyway, from HISAT2 site:

HISAT2 is a fast and sensitive alignment program for mapping next-generation sequencing reads (both DNA and RNA) [...]

1 answer

It's OK to use bowtie2. However if this is something you will be doing a lot, then it would be good to have a comparison of both methods.

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