CLC Bio and BioBam Deliver Integrated Workflow to Functionally Annotate de novo Sequenced Genomes and Transcriptomes

CLC bio and BioBam Bioinformatics have announced an integrated workflow for researchers working with non-model organisms without reference sequences. By combining the Blast2GO PRO plugin and CLC Genomics Workbench, this workflow allows users to combine and integrate NGS bioinformatics data analyses on one platform, covering the whole data analysis workflow from NGS data quality control and assembly to genome-wide functional annotations and interpretations of genomes and transcriptomes.

Head of Genomics at the Centro de Investigación Príncipe Felipe, Ana Conesa, PhD, states, "In my lab we do bioinformatics analyses of transcriptomics data from species for which no or little genome information is available. The combination of CLC Genomics Workbench and the Blast2GO PRO plugin works great since we can assemble our new transcript sequences and send them directly to functional annotation to quickly identify which transcripts are coding and what they're coding for, which saves time and adds value to our research."

"Our department focuses on species that are relevant in an ecological and evolutionary context, but they are not always classical model organisms of molecular biology. For us, CLC Genomics Workbench and Blast2GO PRO are crucial tools for the analysis of de novo transcriptome data. The new CLC Blast2GO PRO plugin allows easier integration of these two tools, reducing the ab initio time from sequence acquisition to annotation results. Furthermore, this plugin has become indispensable in ongoing gene expression profiling studies of non-model species, because it enables us to identify potentially relevant target genes with ease" continues, Dr. Ewald Große-Wilde from the Department of Evolutionary Neuroethology at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology.

The Blast2GO PRO plugin for CLC Genomics Workbench allows for functional annotation of novel sequence data from both genome assembly and transcriptomics projects. Functional annotation is relevant to complete the functional characterization of de novo sequenced genomes and transcriptomes.