Comparative performance of transcriptome assembly methods for non-model organisms.

This study provides general guidance for transcriptome assembly of RNA-Seq data from organisms with or without a sequenced genome. The optimal transcriptome assembly strategy will depend upon the subsequent downstream analyses. However, our results emphasize the efficacy of de novo assembly, which can be as effective as genome-guided assembly when the reference genome assembly is fragmented. If a genome assembly and sufficient computational resources are available, it can be beneficial to combine de novo and genome-guided assemblies. Caution should be taken when using a closely related reference genome to guide transcriptome assembly. The quantity of read pairs used in the transcriptome assembly does not necessarily correlate with the quality of the assembly.