ONT CRISPR Amplicon Sequencing

Nanopore sequencing of CRISPR-Cas9 edited Pieris brassicae NSP gene — 24 barcoded amplicon libraries on MinION

Oxford Nanopore CRISPR-Cas9 Amplicon-seq Pieris brassicae NSP gene
Revised Workflow →

Project Overview

This project assesses CRISPR-Cas9 editing efficiency at the Nitrile Specifier Protein (NSP) gene in Pieris brassicae. A ~500 bp PCR amplicon spanning the sgRNA target site was sequenced on an Oxford Nanopore MinION (R10.4.1 flow cell). 24 barcoded samples were multiplexed in a single run. Reads are aligned to the genomic reference to characterize indel patterns at the CRISPR cut site.

24
Barcoded samples
~150K+
Total reads across barcodes
699 bp
Reference region length
~500 bp
Amplicon size

Reference Region

The reference is a 699 bp region from P. brassicae chromosome 5 (NC_059669.1:14882048-14885601) containing the first coding exon of the NSP gene, flanked by intronic/intergenic sequence.

5'─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────3' │ │ │ │ │ Fwd primer ──► │ │ ◄── Rev primer │ │ ╔══════════ Exon 1 (276 bp) ══════════╗ │ │ │ │ ║ ATG... ...║ │ │ │ │ ╚═════════════════════════════════════╝ │ │ │ │ ▼▼▼ sgRNA_2 cut site ▼▼▼ │ │ │ │ CTTCTTAGCCCTCGCGGCTTTGG │ │ 0 ~60 ~230 ~600 699

Reference files

FileDescription
NSP_region_PCR_sgRNA_genomicDNA.fastaMulti-entry fasta: genomic DNA, exon, primers, sgRNA (with gap-alignment)
NSP_genomic_ref.fastaClean genomic reference (699 bp, gaps removed) — used for alignment
NSP_genomic_ref.mmiMinimap2 index

Analysis Workflow

1
MinION Sequencing

R10.4.1 flow cell, HAC basecalling, demultiplexed to 24 barcodes

2
QC (FastQC)

Per-barcode quality assessment of raw reads

3
Align (minimap2)

Map ONT reads to 699 bp genomic reference

4
BAM + Index

Sort & index with samtools for IGV viewing

5
Indel Analysis

Characterize CRISPR edits at sgRNA cut site

Commands

# Align a barcode to reference (ONT preset, output sorted BAM)
minimap2 -a -x map-ont --MD NSP_genomic_ref.mmi barcode01/*.fastq.gz | \
  samtools sort -o barcode01_aligned.bam -
samtools index barcode01_aligned.bam

# FastQC
fastqc barcode01/*.fastq.gz -o . --threads 2

Barcode Status

BarcodeReadsAlignedFastQC
barcode0115,119DoneDone
barcode0212,126DonePending
barcode0311,008DonePending
barcode048,910DonePending
barcode056,940DonePending
barcode0610,323DonePending
barcode0717,108DonePending
barcode0813,009DonePending
barcode0927,921DonePending
barcode105,685DonePending
barcode1121,097DonePending
barcode12PendingPending
barcode13PendingPending
barcode14PendingPending
barcode15PendingPending
barcode16PendingPending
barcode17PendingPending
barcode18PendingPending
barcode19PendingPending
barcode20PendingPending
barcode21PendingPending
barcode22PendingPending
barcode23PendingPending
barcode24PendingPending

Sequencing Details

ParameterValue
PlatformOxford Nanopore MinION
Flow cellR10.4.1 (FBF81064)
Basecallerdna_r10.4.1_e8.2_400bps_hac v5.2.0
Run date2026-03-05
ProtocolNSP_500bp_trial
SampleNSP_Pnapi_500bp
Barcoding24 barcodes + unclassified
Target organismPieris brassicae (Large White butterfly)
GeneNSP — Nitrile Specifier Protein (LOC123709534)
ReferenceNC_059669.1:14882048-14885601 (chromosome 5)

Software

ToolVersionPurpose
minimap22.30ONT read alignment (-x map-ont)
samtools1.23BAM sorting, indexing, stats
FastQC0.12.1Read quality assessment
IGVVisual inspection of alignments