A De Novo Algorithm for Allele Reconstruction from Oxford Nanopore Amplicon Reads, with Application to CYP2D6

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ID: 321918
2026
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Abstract
Abstract Motivation The Oxford Nanopore Technologies’ sequencing platform offers a path towards bedside genomics, producing long reads that can completely cover a gene of interest, and detect any known or novel variant the gene contains. However, the analysis of these long reads to identify actionable genotypes remains challenging and typically requires customization depending on the target gene. Results Here, we describe a generic algorithm to accurately reconstruct allele sequences derived from long-reads of amplicon-based data. Rather than calling variants directly from these long-reads, our method takes a “sequence-first” approach, performing an unbiased reconstruction of the underlying amplicon sequences to generate high-confidence reconstructed allele sequences. This is done without user input of the target gene, allowing for any source amplicon to be reconstructed. These high-confidence reconstructed allele sequences are then compared to the genomic reference sequence of the gene to infer the specific diplotype present in the sample. This approach is agnostic towards the number of genes and alleles present and readily detects novel variants. We demonstrate our approach using three independent data sets for CYP2D6, a diverse and complex gene with over 175 known alleles of clinical significance. We show how our approach can accurately recover validated CYP2D6 diplotypes from 20 Coriell samples covering 14 distinct alleles, using different amplicons, flow cell versions, and depths. This includes inferring occurrences of allele duplication events from relative abundances of each allele, a critical factor for ascribing functional effects to a diplotype. Further, we demonstrate our approach’s utility for other genomic regions, including HLA. Availability Custom code is available at the following GitHub repository, along with instructions for use and test data: https://github.com/scottdbrown/allele-reconstruction-long-read-amplicon-data. A snapshot of the code at the time of publication is available on Zenodo.org; doi 10.5281/zenodo.19716004. Raw .fastq sequence data for our three sequencing runs is available at the SRA under Bioproject PRJNA1357883 (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/bioproject/1357883). Supplementary information Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
Reference Key
openalex_W7169842567 Use this key to autocite in the manuscript while using SciMatic Manuscript Manager or Thesis Manager
Authors Scott D. Brown, Lisa Dreolini, Agata Minor, Michelle Mozel, Nancy Wong, Sharon Mar, Amanda Lieu, Maimun Khan, Amanda Carlson, Monica Hrynchak, Robert A. Holt, Perseus I. Missirlis
Journal BMC Bioinformatics
Year 2026
DOI
10.1093/bioinformatics/btag535
URL
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