Adding new aDNA challenge dataset

Hi, As the field of ancient DNA (aDNA) metagenomics is developping, we face the same challenge of method benchmarking. However, aDNA data are a bit different compared to modern DNA:

• aDNA is typically very fragmented (30-100 bp fragments)
• aDNA undergoes a process called deamination, which replaces Cytosines by Uracils, read as Thymins by sequencers, which introduces (damage based) SNPs/point mutation

My lab already published a benchmark of different metagenome classifiers, however, adding a aDNA dataset to your CI benchmark would be a more appropriate long term solution.

If we provide you with (a) mock aDNA metagenomics dataset(s) (for example, generated with ADRSM), could you add them to your benchmark ?

Best,

Maxime Borry
PhD student
Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Jena, Germany