This is a test version of Biostars. For the public version, visit https://www.biostars.org.
bwa fail to infer insert size

Hello! I am using bwa aln for paired-end small RNA-seq reads. After trimming adapters and QC, the reads are 15-150bp For most of my samples all looks well after sampe, but for a few of them I get the message:

[infer_isize] fail to infer insert size: upper bound is smaller than read length

It still outputs a SAM file, but there are no mapped reads. I'm unsure what is causing the message? Any insight is appreciated!

alignment rna-seq

1 answer

For small RNA you should use something like bowtie v.1 instead.

Ok, thanks for the suggestion. But any ideas as to what the message I'm getting means?

The insert size is shorter than the read length means the reads overlap.

Log in to answer this question.