Hashing complements alignment-based methods for bacterial genome annotation

DNA sequencing has changed biology like nothing else since the origin of species theory. In particular, the way we investigate microbial life has fundamentally changed. Today, we are able to sequence DNA with unprecedented speed and resolution, so that we are even able to sequence genomes of microbes that have never been described or cultivated before. At the same time, whole-genome sequencing of known—most pathogenic—species, has become a routine methodology carried out worldwide as a daily business.