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Bio Genome Assembly Assembly Polishing Agent Skill

Polish genome assemblies to reduce errors using short reads (Pilon), long reads (Racon), or ONT-specific tools (medaka). Essential for improving long-read assembly accuracy. Use when improving assembly accuracy with polishing tools.

2k tokens
context cost
SKILL.md, read when the skill is used
3
files
ships runnable scripts
0
copies elsewhere
how many repositories repackaged it
132
stars on the repo
on the repository, not the skill itself

Install

one command, takes just this skill from the repository
npx skills add https://github.com/BioTender-max/awesome-bio-agent-skills --skill bio-genome-assembly-assembly-polishing

What comes with it

2 840 bytes besides the instruction
examples/polish_assembly.sh
usage-guide.md

The instruction itself

32 sections, as written by the author

Version Compatibility

Reference examples tested with: BWA 0.7.17+, QUAST 5.2+, minimap2 2.26+, samtools 1.19+

Before using code patterns, verify installed versions match. If versions differ:

  • CLI: <tool> --version then <tool> --help to confirm flags

If code throws ImportError, AttributeError, or TypeError, introspect the installed

package and adapt the example to match the actual API rather than retrying.

Assembly Polishing

"Polish my genome assembly" → Iteratively correct base-level errors in a draft assembly using short-read or long-read alignments.

  • CLI: pilon --genome draft.fa --frags short_reads.bam (short-read), medaka_polish (ONT), racon (long-read)

Polishing Strategies

| Tool | Input Reads | Best For |

|------|-------------|----------|

| Pilon | Illumina | Final polishing |

| medaka | ONT | ONT assemblies |

| Racon | Long reads | Quick polishing |

| NextPolish | Both | Combined approach |

ONT Assembly

  • Racon (2-3 rounds with ONT)
  • medaka (1 round)
  • Pilon (2-3 rounds with Illumina)

PacBio CLR Assembly

  • Racon (2-3 rounds)
  • Pilon (2-3 rounds with Illumina)

PacBio HiFi Assembly

  • Often no polishing needed (>99% accuracy)
  • Optional Pilon if Illumina available

Pilon (Illumina Polishing)

Installation

conda install -c bioconda pilon

Basic Usage

# Map short reads to assembly
bwa index assembly.fasta
bwa mem -t 16 assembly.fasta R1.fq.gz R2.fq.gz | samtools sort -o aligned.bam
samtools index aligned.bam

# Run Pilon
pilon --genome assembly.fasta --frags aligned.bam --output polished

Key Options

| Option | Description |

|--------|-------------|

| --genome | Input assembly |

| --frags | Paired-end BAM |

| --output | Output prefix |

| --changes | Write changes file |

| --vcf | Write VCF of changes |

| --fix | What to fix (snps, indels, gaps, all) |

| --threads | Threads for alignment |

| --mindepth | Min depth for correction |

Multiple Rounds

#!/bin/bash
ASSEMBLY=$1
R1=$2
R2=$3
ROUNDS=${4:-3}

current=$ASSEMBLY

for i in $(seq 1 $ROUNDS); do
    echo "=== Pilon round $i ==="
    bwa index $current
    bwa mem -t 16 $current $R1 $R2 | samtools sort -o round${i}.bam
    samtools index round${i}.bam

    pilon --genome $current --frags round${i}.bam --output pilon_round${i} --changes

    current=pilon_round${i}.fasta

    changes=$(wc -l < pilon_round${i}.changes)
    echo "Changes made: $changes"

    if [ $changes -eq 0 ]; then
        echo "No more changes, stopping"
        break
    fi
done

cp $current final_polished.fasta

Fix Specific Issues

# Only fix SNPs and small indels
pilon --genome assembly.fa --frags aligned.bam --output polished --fix snps,indels

# Only fill gaps
pilon --genome assembly.fa --frags aligned.bam --output polished --fix gaps

medaka (ONT Polishing)

Installation

conda install -c bioconda medaka

Basic Usage

medaka_consensus -i reads.fastq.gz -d assembly.fasta -o medaka_output -t 8

Key Options

| Option | Description |

|--------|-------------|

| -i | Input reads |

| -d | Draft assembly |

| -o | Output directory |

| -t | Threads |

| -m | Model name |

Model Selection

# List available models
medaka tools list_models

# Use specific model (match your basecaller)
medaka_consensus -i reads.fq.gz -d assembly.fa -o output -m r1041_e82_400bps_sup_v5.1.0

Models for Common Chemistries

| Chemistry | Model |

|-----------|-------|

| R10.4.1 + SUP | r1041_e82_400bps_sup_* |

| R10.4.1 + HAC | r1041_e82_400bps_hac_* |

| R9.4.1 + SUP | r941_sup_* |

Output

medaka_output/
├── consensus.fasta    # Polished assembly
├── calls_to_draft.bam # Alignments
└── *.hdf              # Intermediate files

Racon (Long-Read Polishing)

Installation

conda install -c bioconda racon

Basic Usage

# Map reads to assembly
minimap2 -ax map-ont assembly.fasta reads.fastq.gz > aligned.sam

# Polish
racon -t 16 reads.fastq.gz aligned.sam assembly.fasta > polished.fasta

Multiple Rounds

#!/bin/bash
ASSEMBLY=$1
READS=$2
ROUNDS=${3:-3}

current=$ASSEMBLY

for i in $(seq 1 $ROUNDS); do
    echo "=== Racon round $i ==="
    minimap2 -ax map-ont $current $READS > round${i}.sam
    racon -t 16 $READS round${i}.sam $current > racon_round${i}.fasta
    current=racon_round${i}.fasta
done

cp $current racon_polished.fasta

Key Options

| Option | Description |

|--------|-------------|

| -t | Threads |

| -m | Match score (default: 3) |

| -x | Mismatch score (default: -5) |

| -g | Gap penalty (default: -4) |

| -w | Window size (default: 500) |

Complete Polishing Workflow

Goal: Maximize assembly accuracy through iterative multi-tool polishing.

Approach: Apply Racon with long reads, then medaka for ONT-specific error correction, then Pilon with short reads for final accuracy.

ONT Assembly Polishing

#!/bin/bash
set -euo pipefail

ASSEMBLY=$1      # Flye assembly
ONT_READS=$2     # ONT reads
ILLUMINA_R1=$3   # Illumina R1
ILLUMINA_R2=$4   # Illumina R2
OUTDIR=$5

mkdir -p $OUTDIR

# Step 1: Racon polishing (2 rounds)
echo "=== Racon Polishing ==="
current=$ASSEMBLY
for i in 1 2; do
    minimap2 -ax map-ont $current $ONT_READS > ${OUTDIR}/racon_${i}.sam
    racon -t 16 $ONT_READS ${OUTDIR}/racon_${i}.sam $current > ${OUTDIR}/racon_${i}.fasta
    current=${OUTDIR}/racon_${i}.fasta
done

# Step 2: medaka polishing
echo "=== medaka Polishing ==="
medaka_consensus -i $ONT_READS -d $current -o ${OUTDIR}/medaka -t 8
current=${OUTDIR}/medaka/consensus.fasta

# Step 3: Pilon polishing (2 rounds)
echo "=== Pilon Polishing ==="
for i in 1 2; do
    bwa index $current
    bwa mem -t 16 $current $ILLUMINA_R1 $ILLUMINA_R2 | samtools sort -o ${OUTDIR}/pilon_${i}.bam
    samtools index ${OUTDIR}/pilon_${i}.bam
    pilon --genome $current --frags ${OUTDIR}/pilon_${i}.bam --output ${OUTDIR}/pilon_${i}
    current=${OUTDIR}/pilon_${i}.fasta
done

cp $current ${OUTDIR}/final_polished.fasta
echo "Done: ${OUTDIR}/final_polished.fasta"

NextPolish (Combined Approach)

Installation

conda install -c bioconda nextpolish

Usage

# Create config file
cat > run.cfg << EOF
[General]
job_type = local
job_prefix = nextPolish
task = best
rewrite = yes
rerun = 3
parallel_jobs = 2
multithread_jobs = 8
genome = assembly.fasta
genome_size = auto
workdir = ./01_rundir
[lgs_option]
lgs_fofn = lgs.fofn
lgs_options = -min_read_len 1k -max_depth 100
lgs_minimap2_options = -x map-ont
[sgs_option]
sgs_fofn = sgs.fofn
sgs_options = -max_depth 100
EOF

# File of filenames
ls reads.fastq.gz > lgs.fofn
ls R1.fq.gz R2.fq.gz > sgs.fofn

# Run
nextPolish run.cfg

Quality Assessment

Goal: Measure the accuracy improvement from polishing.

Approach: Compare original and polished assemblies with QUAST against a reference, and check alignment error rates.

After polishing, assess improvement:

# Compare to reference (if available)
quast.py -r reference.fa original.fa polished.fa -o quast_comparison

# Check error rate
minimap2 -ax map-ont polished.fa reads.fq.gz | samtools stats | grep "error rate"
  • long-read-assembly - Initial assembly
  • short-read-assembly - Source of polishing reads
  • assembly-qc - Assess polishing improvement
  • long-read-sequencing - medaka variant calling

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