He said: “Even though my fish died, I wanted to keep it forever. So I decided to sequence this angelfish’s genome in the hope that I could contribute this information to the scientific community, but also to my pets. Respect!”
Maddie Reddy performed the sequencing at a community lab in Santa Clara, California. Anyone paying a small membership fee can use the lab’s advanced equipment.
To preserve the fish’s deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), Maddie Reddy kept his fish in a laboratory environment of minus 80 degrees Celsius. It took him a month to prepare and learn how to sequence.
Sequencing was done over two weekends using a small sequencer made by Oxford Nanopore. This type of sequencer reads the sequence of DNA molecules as they pass through micropores.
Oxford Nanopore’s sequencers are slightly less accurate than other sequencing methods, but are able to sequence very long DNA fragments. This makes it easier for sequencing software to synthesize genomes by putting all the pieces back together — like a puzzle with fewer pieces and larger pieces.
Analysing the data took another two months and required a lot of learning, Madiredi said. He has put the sequence data into a public database and published a short paper describing the work on October 18.
Angelfish is native to the Amazon Basin and has become a popular ornamental fish in the world. The angelfish genome is nothing special and is similar to that of more closely related fish.
Maddie Reddy said the sequencing cost about $2,000, and he raised nearly $1,000 through crowdfunding. (Compile / Qing Songzhu)