Happ : High-accuracy pipeline for processing deep metabarcoding data
(2025) In PLoS Computational Biology 21(11).- Abstract
Deep metabarcoding offers an efficient and reproducible approach to biodiversity monitoring, but noisy data and incomplete reference databases challenge accurate diversity estimation and taxonomic annotation. Here, we introduce a novel algorithm, NEEAT, for removing spurious operational taxonomic units (OTUs) originating from nuclear-embedded mitochondrial DNA sequences (NUMTs) or sequencing errors. It integrates 'echo' signals across samples with the identification of unusual evolutionary patterns among similar DNA sequences. We also extensively benchmark current tools for chimera removal, taxonomic annotation and OTU clustering of deep metabarcoding data. The best performing tools/parameter settings are integrated into HAPP, a... (More)
Deep metabarcoding offers an efficient and reproducible approach to biodiversity monitoring, but noisy data and incomplete reference databases challenge accurate diversity estimation and taxonomic annotation. Here, we introduce a novel algorithm, NEEAT, for removing spurious operational taxonomic units (OTUs) originating from nuclear-embedded mitochondrial DNA sequences (NUMTs) or sequencing errors. It integrates 'echo' signals across samples with the identification of unusual evolutionary patterns among similar DNA sequences. We also extensively benchmark current tools for chimera removal, taxonomic annotation and OTU clustering of deep metabarcoding data. The best performing tools/parameter settings are integrated into HAPP, a high-accuracy pipeline for processing deep metabarcoding data. Tests using CO1 data from BOLD and large-scale metabarcoding data on insects demonstrate that HAPP significantly outperforms existing methods, while enabling efficient analysis of extensive datasets by parallelizing computations across taxonomic groups.
(Less)
- author
- organization
- publishing date
- 2025-11-07
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- epub
- subject
- in
- PLoS Computational Biology
- volume
- 21
- issue
- 11
- article number
- e1013558
- pages
- 23 pages
- publisher
- Public Library of Science (PLoS)
- external identifiers
-
- pmid:41202092
- ISSN
- 1553-7358
- DOI
- 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1013558
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- additional info
- Copyright: © 2025 Sundh et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
- id
- f2065479-5023-4357-b71c-53bc4ca3513d
- date added to LUP
- 2025-11-11 07:42:42
- date last changed
- 2025-11-11 09:33:29
@article{f2065479-5023-4357-b71c-53bc4ca3513d,
abstract = {{<p>Deep metabarcoding offers an efficient and reproducible approach to biodiversity monitoring, but noisy data and incomplete reference databases challenge accurate diversity estimation and taxonomic annotation. Here, we introduce a novel algorithm, NEEAT, for removing spurious operational taxonomic units (OTUs) originating from nuclear-embedded mitochondrial DNA sequences (NUMTs) or sequencing errors. It integrates 'echo' signals across samples with the identification of unusual evolutionary patterns among similar DNA sequences. We also extensively benchmark current tools for chimera removal, taxonomic annotation and OTU clustering of deep metabarcoding data. The best performing tools/parameter settings are integrated into HAPP, a high-accuracy pipeline for processing deep metabarcoding data. Tests using CO1 data from BOLD and large-scale metabarcoding data on insects demonstrate that HAPP significantly outperforms existing methods, while enabling efficient analysis of extensive datasets by parallelizing computations across taxonomic groups.</p>}},
author = {{Sundh, John and Granqvist, Emma and Iwaszkiewicz-Eggebrecht, Ela and Manoharan, Lokeshwaran and van Dijk, Laura J A and Goodsell, Robert and Godeiro, Nerivania N and Bellini, Bruno C and Orsholm, Johanna and Łukasik, Piotr and Miraldo, Andreia and Roslin, Tomas and Tack, Ayco J M and Andersson, Anders F and Ronquist, Fredrik}},
issn = {{1553-7358}},
language = {{eng}},
month = {{11}},
number = {{11}},
publisher = {{Public Library of Science (PLoS)}},
series = {{PLoS Computational Biology}},
title = {{Happ : High-accuracy pipeline for processing deep metabarcoding data}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1013558}},
doi = {{10.1371/journal.pcbi.1013558}},
volume = {{21}},
year = {{2025}},
}
