Keith Robison has written another fantastic post on his Omics! Omics! blog which is a great read for two reasons.

First he looks at the issues regarding chromosome-size scaffolds that can now be produced with Hi-C sequencing approches. He then goes on to provide a brilliant overview of what the latest sequencing and mapping technologies mean for the field of genome assembly:

For high quality de novo genomes, the technology options appear to be converging for the moment on five basic technologies which can be mixed-and-matched.

Hi-C (in vitro or in vivo)

Rapid Physical Maps (BioNano Genomics)

Linked Reads (10X, iGenomX)

Oxford Nanopore

Pacific Biosciences

vanilla Illumina paired end

This second section should be required reading for anyone interested in genome assembly, particularly if you've been away for the field for a while.

Read the post: Chromosome-Scale Scaffolds And The State of Genome Assembly