Next-Generation Sequencing Techniques: Solutions to Biological Problems

Dear Colleagues, 

Since 2005, when next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies became available to the public, they have changed all areas of biology. The sequencing quality and yield are constantly improving, and the costs continue to decrease. During the Human Genomic Project between 1990 and 2003, up to USD 3 billion was spent to sequence and assemble the 3 billion base-pair human genome. However, one gigabase of sequences can currently be generated for less than $10 on an Illumina NovaSeq 6000 instrument. NGS techniques have been widely applied in fundamental research, such as characterizing the genome, gene expression, and epigenetic profiles; in agricultural research, such as genome-assisted breeding to develop new varieties, stocks, and breeds; and in genome/transcriptome analyses to control pathogens and pests. The massive parallel NGS accelerates biomedical research and large-scale studies, such as genome-wide association studies (GWASs), the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), and the Genotype-Tissue Expression Project (GTEx), which would not be possible without NGS. Personalized medicine relies on NGS to discover disease-causing genes and pharmacogenomic loci. NGS has also significantly advanced the environment, soil, and animal microbiota research through the metagenomic characterization of unculturable microbes. Accurate long-read sequencing, single-cell sequencing, and spatial sequencing have recently brought NGS applications to the next level. NGS technology provides unprecedented capability to tackle biological questions. In this Special Issue, we invite articles using NGS technologies to address all kinds of biological questions, including but not limited to DNA sequencing, RNA sequencing, exome sequencing, single-cell sequencing, DNA methylome sequencing, ChIP-seq, ATAC-seq, 16S/18S and whole-genome metagenomic sequencing, and metatranscriptomic sequencing.

Dr. Xu Wang
Dr. Baofeng Su
Guest Editors

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• next-generation sequencing genome
• gene expression
• epigenetic profile
• genome-assisted breeding
• long-read sequencing
• single-cell spatial sequencing
• whole-genome metagenomic sequencing