Proteomics as a metrological tool to evaluate genome annotation accuracy following de novo genome assembly: a case study using the Atlantic bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus)

BackgroundThe last decade has witnessed dramatic improvements in whole-genome sequencing capabilities coupled to drastically decreased costs, leading to an inundation of high-quality de novo genomes. For this reason, continued development of genome quality metrics is imperative. The current study utilized the recently updated Atlantic bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) genome and annotation to evaluate a proteomics-based metric of genome accuracy.ResultsProteomic analysis of six tissues provided experimental confirmation of 10 402 proteins from 4 711 protein groups, almost 1/3 of the possible predicted proteins in the genome. There was an increased median molecular weight and number of identified peptides per protein using the current T. truncatus annotation versus the previous annotation. Identification of larger proteins with more identified peptides implied reduced database fragmentation and improved gene annotation accuracy. A metric is proposed, NP10, that attempts to capture this quality improvement. When using the new T. truncatus genome there was a 21 % improvement in NP10. This metric was further demonstrated by using a publicly available proteomic data set to compare human genome annotations from 2004, 2013 and 2016, which had a 33 % improvement in NP10.ConclusionsThese results demonstrate that new whole-genome sequencing techniques can rapidly generate high quality de novo genome assemblies and emphasizes the speed of advancing bioanalytical measurements in a non-model organism. Moreover, proteomics may be a useful metrological tool to benchmark genome accuracy, though there is a need for reference proteomic datasets to facilitate this utility in new de novo and existing genomes.