busco

Busco is a command-line tool used for searching and aligning nucleotide sequences against a reference genome. It is particularly useful in bioinformatics for tasks such as identifying genetic variants, mapping reads to a reference genome, and analyzing genomic data. Busco stands for Benchmarking Universal Single-Copy Orthologs, and it is designed to assess the completeness of genome assemblies by comparing them to a set of universal single-copy orthologs from closely related species.

The tool works by aligning sequences from the genome assembly to a database of conserved genes, which are expected to be present in all complete genomes. By calculating the proportion of these conserved genes that are found in the assembly, Busco provides a measure of the genome's completeness. This metric is known as the BUSCO score, which ranges from 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating a more complete genome assembly.

Busco is widely used in the scientific community for evaluating the quality of genome assemblies, especially in the context of large-scale genome projects. It is compatible with various genome assembly tools and can be integrated into workflows for automated quality control. The tool is open-source and available for download from its official website, where users can find documentation, tutorials, and support resources.