Cited by 5,859Genomics and Phylogenetic StudiesGenomic variations and chromosomal abnormalitiesChromosomal and Genetic Variations

Haplotype-resolved de novo assembly using phased assembly graphs with hifiasm

Open access
Cheng, Haoyu, Concepcion, Gregory T., Feng, Xiaowen, Zhang, Haowen, Li, Heng·2021·Nature Methods

Abstract

Haplotype-resolved de novo assembly is the ultimate solution to the study of sequence variations in a genome. However, existing algorithms either collapse heterozygous alleles into one consensus copy or fail to cleanly separate the haplotypes to produce high-quality phased assemblies. Here we describe hifiasm, a de novo assembler that takes advantage of long high-fidelity sequence reads to faithfully represent the haplotype information in a phased assembly graph. Unlike other graph-based assemblers that only aim to maintain the contiguity of one haplotype, hifiasm strives to preserve the contiguity of all haplotypes. This feature enables the development of a graph trio binning algorithm that greatly advances over standard trio binning. On three human and five nonhuman datasets, including California redwood with a ~30-Gb hexaploid genome, we show that hifiasm frequently delivers better assemblies than existing tools and consistently outperforms others on haplotype-resolved assembly.

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Crossref · 10.1038/s41592-020-01056-5

Cites

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  • The HiFi depth of coverage is consistent with the requirements for high-quality, state-of-the-art assemblies and facilitates comprehensive variant discovery irrespective of allele frequency.

    “This depth of coverage is consistent with the requirements for high-quality, state-of-the-art assemblies20 and facilitates comprehensive variant discovery irrespective of allele frequency (AF).”

    From A draft human pangenome reference. (2023) · cites this paper as [20]

    The Discussion reports that hifiasm produces high-quality haplotype-resolved assemblies from HiFi reads, supporting the assembly-quality portion of the citation. The passages on coverage in the Online Methods do not establish that the citing document’s depth meets a specified coverage requirement. The citation is attached to the assembly clause; the paper also does not establish variant discovery irrespective of allele frequency. (LLM, conf=0.79)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
  • The authors chose Trio-Hifiasm as the core assembler after detailed benchmarking of several alternatives.

    “For the core assembler, we chose Trio-Hifiasm20 after detailed benchmarking of several alternatives21.”

    From A draft human pangenome reference. (2023) · cites this paper as [20]

  • These improvements are the result of recent improvements in de novo assembly driven by better sequencing technology and coordinated innovations in assembly algorithms.

    “These improvements are the result of recent improvements in de novo assembly driven both by better sequencing technology and coordinated innovations in assembly algorithms20,21.”

    From A draft human pangenome reference. (2023) · cites this paper as [20]

  • These technological advancements led to a new generation of genome alignment and assembly algorithms leveraging new data types.

    “These technological advancements also led to a new generation of genome alignment and assembly algorithms leveraging the new data types (84–89).”

    From Topological Approaches in Animal Comparative Genomics (2026) · cites this paper as [84]

  • Yak k-mer analyser estimated an average quality value of 53.57 for the assemblies, corresponding to an average of 1 base error per 227,509 bases.

    “Using short substrings (k-mer values of 31) derived from Illumina data, the Yak k-mer analyser20 estimated an average quality value (QV) of 53.57 for the assemblies, which corresponded to an average of 1 base error per 227,509 bases (Fig. 1e).”

    From A draft human pangenome reference. (2023) · cites this paper as [20]

    The cited paper’s Results discuss hifiasm assembly quality, but the passages in our copy do not identify the Yak k-mer analyser or report a QV of 53.57 or one error per 227,509 bases. Searches for Yak and those figures found no passage addressing the cited measurement. (LLM, conf=0.76)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

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Research works printed but not linked: 1

  1. [9]Chen Y Fast and accurate assembly of Nanopore reads via progressive error correction and adaptive read selection. Preprint at bioRxiv https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.01.930107v1 (2020). · DOI

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Authors
Cheng, H., Concepcion, G. T., Feng, X., Zhang, H., & Li, H.
Affiliations
  • Harvard University (US)
  • Pacific Biosciences (United States) (US)
  • Georgia Institute of Technology (US)
Corresponding author
Li, Heng
Venue
Nature Methods
Published
2021-02
Volume
18
Issue
2
Pages
170-175
ISSN
  • 1548-7091 (ISSN-L)
  • 1548-7105
OpenAlex
W3047598142
Cited by
5,859
References
40
Citations by year
2026: 1431 · 2025: 1650 · 2024: 1401 · 2023: 850 · 2022: 381 · 2021: 140 · 2020: 3 · 2019: 1
FWCI
226.27
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Nature Methods (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
  • arXiv (Cornell University) (submittedVersion)
  • arXiv (Cornell University) (cc-by)
Funders
U.S. Department of Health & Human Services | NIH | National Human Genome Research Institute (R01HG010040, U01HG010971, U41HG010972)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Genomics and Phylogenetic Studies
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Genetics › Genomic variations and chromosomal abnormalities
  • Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Plant Science › Chromosomal and Genetic Variations
Keywords
haplotype-resolved genome assembly, de novo genome assembly, Hifiasm, trio binning, heterozygous alleles, long-read sequencing, hexaploid genome, Sequoia sempervirens
MeSH terms
Algorithms, Haplotypes, Genome, Sequence Analysis, DNA

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