High-Quality Assembly of an Individual of Yoruban Descent

De novo assembly of human genomes is now a tractable effort due in part to advances in sequencing and mapping technologies. We use PacBio single-molecule, real-time (SMRT) sequencing and BioNano genomic maps to construct the first de novo assembly of NA19240, a Yoruban individual from Africa. This chromosome-scaffolded assembly of 3.08 Gb with a contig N50 of 7.25 Mb and a scaffold N50 of 78.6 Mb represents one of the most contiguous high-quality human genomes. We utilize a BAC library derived from NA19240 DNA and novel haplotype-resolving sequencing technologies and algorithms to characterize regions of complex genomic architecture that are normally lost due to compression to a linear haploid assembly. Our results demonstrate that multiple technologies are still necessary for complete genomic representation, particularly in regions of highly identical segmental duplications. Additionally, we show that diploid assembly has utility in improving the quality of de novo human genome assemblies.