Strategies and techniques for finishing genomic sequence.

Finishing genomic sequence is the process of assembling and refining raw sequence data to produce a complete and accurate final sequence. The goals of finishing are to achieve contiguity, delineate insert-vector junctions, and resolve sequence discrepancies and ambiguities such that the error rate of the sequence is less than one in 10,000 bases. Such a level of accuracy is often difficult to establish due to a repetitive sequence or other secondary structures that require the use of more complicated finishing techniques. Because of such complexities, the finishing process is the bottleneck in the sequencing queue, and as such it is extremely beneficial to make the draft data publicly available before the sequence is completed. Much of the valuable information contained in the sequence can be determined from data at this earlier stage.