Velvet and ABySS (de Bruijn graph Assemblers)

Question

[Abdul Rafay Khan]

Why Velvet and ABySS, the de Bruijn graph assemblers produce greater number of contigs than any other assembler? Ideally, a good assembler should generate less number of contigs.

Answer 1

[mastal511]

Some assemblers are more 'conservative' than others when it comes to merging small contigs into larger contigs, so will give an assembly with a larger number of contigs.