Sequencing complete plasmids on Oxford Nanopore Technologies sequencers using R2C2 and Chopper

Abstract

Plasmids are ubiquitous tools in molecular biology which are used for a large variety of experiments within academic and commercial labs. Both new and old plasmids have to undergo sequencing-based analysis to determine whether or not they are functional, i.e., contain the correct insert in the correct backbone. While traditional Sanger sequencing based analysis was most often limited to the inserts, new high-throughput sequencing based methods and services can now provide the complete sequence of a plasmid. Currently available methods and services vary in throughput and cost. Here, we adapted the Oxford Nanopore Technologies-based R2C2 sequencing method to – rapidly and at low cost – sequence complete plasmids, either individually or in a pool. We also developed an analysis pipeline, Chopper, that produces full-length plasmid sequences. We tested our workflow with commonly used plasmids we ordered from Addgene and produced highly accurate sequences for each plasmid from both their individual and pooled sequencing runs.