The Barcode of Life Data System ( BOLD ) is an informatics workbench aiding the acquisition, storage, analysis and publication of DNA barcode records. By assembling molecular, morphological and distributional data, it bridges a traditional bioinformatics chasm. BOLD is freely available to any researcher with interests in DNA barcoding. By providing specialized services, it aids the assembly of ...

Multiplexing is a widely-used procedure that allows multiple DNA libraries to be pooled together for efficient sequencing. However, recent reports suggest that the DNA barcodes that label different libraries can “swap” on patterned flow-cell Illumina sequencing machines, including the HiSeq 4000, HiSeq X, and NovaSeq, thereby mislabelling molecules [1, 2]. This may compromise many types of -omi...

DNA-barcoding is a rapidly developing method for efficiently identifying samples to species level by means of short standard DNA sequences. However, reliable species assignment requires the availability of a comprehensive DNA barcode reference library, and hence numerous initiatives aim at generating such barcode databases for particular taxa or geographic regions. Historical museum collections...

Although a mitochondrial DNA barcode has been shown to be of great utility for species identification and discovery in an increasing number of diverse taxa, caution has been urged with its application to one of the most taxonomically diverse vertebrate groups — the amphibians. Here, we test three of the perceived shortcomings of a CO1 DNA barcode’s utility with a group of Holarctic amphibians: ...

Large-scale DNA barcoding projects are now moving toward activation while the creation of a comprehensive barcode library for eukaryotes will ultimately require the acquisition of some 100 million barcodes. To satisfy this need, analytical facilities must adopt protocols that can support the rapid, cost-effective assembly of barcodes. In this paper we discuss the prospects for establishing high...

Circulating tumour DNA (ctDNA) is an emerging field of cancer research. However, current ctDNA analysis is usually restricted to one or a few mutation sites due to technical limitations. In the case of massively parallel DNA sequencers, the number of false positives caused by a high read error rate is a major problem. In addition, the final sequence reads do not represent the original DNA popul...

The zebra mussel (Dreissena polymorpha) and the quagga mussel (Dreissena rostriformis bugensis) are considered as the most competitive invaders in freshwaters of Europe and North America. Although shell characteristics exist to differentiate both species, phenotypic plasticity in the genus Dreissena does not always allow a clear identification. Therefore, the need to find an accurate identifica...

Reliable recovery of the 5′ region of the cytochrome c oxidase 1 (COI) gene is critical for the ongoing effort to gather DNA barcodes for all fish species. In this study, we develop and test primer cocktails with a view towards increasing the efficiency of barcode recovery. Specifically, we evaluate the success of polymerase chain reaction amplification and the quality of resultant sequences us...

DNA barcodes linked to genetic features greatly facilitate screening these features in pooled formats using microarray hybridization, and new tools are needed to design large sets of barcodes to allow construction of large barcoded mammalian libraries such as shRNA libraries. Here we report a framework for designing large sets of orthogonal barcode probes. We demonstrate the utility of this fra...