Coverage (genetics)

The term "ultra-deep" can sometimes also refer to higher coverage (>100-fold), which allows for detection of sequence variants in mixed populations.

[9] Counting the number of mRNAs that are encoded by individual genes provides an indicator of protein-coding potential, a major contributor to phenotype.

For example, a hypothetical genome with 2,000 base pairs reconstructed from 8 reads with an average length of 500 nucleotides will have 2× redundancy.

This parameter also enables one to estimate other quantities, such as the percentage of the genome covered by reads (sometimes also called breadth of coverage).

A high coverage in shotgun sequencing is desired because it can overcome errors in base calling and assembly.

An overlap of the product of three sequencing runs, with the read sequence coverage at each point indicated.