De Bruijn graphs - II

In the previous post, we discussed how de Bruijn graphs can be constructed for a genome or a large sequence. Today we will explain, why this method is so popular for genome or transcriptome assembly using short reads. We will also explain why traditional short-read genome assemblers, such as Velvet or SOAPdenovo, cannot be directly applied to transcriptomes.

Any genome can be converted into a de Bruijn graph, as shown in the previous post. The graph may be large or small depending on how big the genome is, but its essential features are similar for all genome.

Let’s say, we have a genome, whose de Bruijn graph looks like the following figure -

Rest here