De novo whole-genome sequencing (WGS) of animals and especially plants is challenging due to large genome sizes, extensive duplications, variable ploidy, repetitive elements and regions, and areas of high GC or AT content. Genomes assembled from short reads are generally draft genomes, comprised of thousands of contigs, with as many gaps and errors. Unresolved haplotypes leave us without access to a whole layer of genetic variation information. Long-read sequencing, linked-read strategies and optical mapping offer significant improvements to genome assembly quality, but remain hard to scale.

Our Proximo™ Genome Scaffolding Platform offers a cost-effective and scalable strategy for obtaining the long-range information needed to improve genome contiguity, and phase haplotypes. Proximo Hi-C Proximity Ligation Library Preparation Kits (optimized for animals, plants or microbes) allow you to capture the chromosomal origin of sequences and measure the genomic distance between any two loci. The innovative Proximo algorithm uses the Hi-C data and scaffolding optimization to orient and sort WGS reads, producing very long contigs and high-quality, chromosome-scale scaffolds. Hi-C data and Proximo may also be integrated with other computational approaches (e.g. FALCON-Phase), to enable1 the production of “gold” and “platinum” eukaryotic genomes (high-quality, highly contiguous genomes with full chromosomes and haplotype resolution across critical regions, or the entire genome, respectively).¹

Learn more about the many eukaryotic genomes generated or improved using the Proximo Platform.

1: Bickhart et al. Nat. Genet. 2017; 49: 643. 2: Pennisi, Science 2017; 357: 10. 3: Peichel et al. J. Hered. 2017; 108: 693. 4: Lightfoot et al. BMC Biol. 2017; 15: 74. 5: Burton
et al. Nat. Biotechnol. 2013; 31: 1119. 6: Wallberg et al. BMC Genomics 2019; 20: 275. 7: Lehmann et al. BioRxiv March 2018. 8: VanBuren et al. GigaScience 2018; 7: giy094.
9: Fallon et al. BioRxiv December 2017. For a complete list of eukaryotes for which reference genomes have been generated or improved with the Proximo
Platform, visit http://phasegenomics.com/publications/#papers.