Comparative Genomics of Drosophila melanogaster using BioNano Optical Maps

Drosophila melanogaster has been a model organism for genetic and genomic study. With the use of the BioNano Irys system, we are able to construct a physical genome map of multiple strains of Drosophila melanogaster. By fluorescently imaging nicked and labeled high molecular weight DNA, the images are assembled into a physical map. The physical maps were mapped to sequence-based maps to verify chromosome integrity and identify structural variations. This same method also allowed for the identification of regions of the genomes that may have been incorrectly assembled previously. These structural variants will be used to enhance our understanding of the evolutionary history of Drosophila melanogaster through the genome comparisons of BioNano and DNA sequence data.