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Short And Long Read Sequencing

What is the difference between short and long read sequencing?

What are the comparative advantages of each?

Which one of them is used now-a-days for sequence assembly? and

Which one is preferred for future from both the computational and analytical point of view?

next-gen sequencing alignment short
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updated by Istvan Albert Istvan Albert • written by Higherdefender • Higherdefender

1 answer

The difference is in the length of the reads :-)

The term 'short read' came about to describe technologies that produced reads that were substantially shorter (30-50bp) than the mainstream technologies employed at that point (1000bp). The 'short read' sequences are getting longer as the technologies evolve but as far as I know there is no length at which sequencing would be called 'long read'.

Short read technologies produce higher coverage. Longer reads are easier to process computationally and interpret analytically. A trade-off between the various needs and requirements determines the right choice.

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written by Istvan Albert Istvan Albert

Just to add a little:

As mentioned, I believe that there is generally a trade off between length of sequence and number of reads (coverage).

Sometimes longer reads are needed. For example, to cover more than one exon/exon junction in mRNA to deduce isoforms.

Also, the way a library is prepared is usually very important for analysis. Often times an RNA sequencing experiment will remove small RNAs from a library before sequencing - microRNAs, siRNAs, and other small RNAs will not present in the sequencing results, so these libraries can't be used for projects analysing those.

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written by Sequencegeek • Sequencegeek

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