plasmidSPAdes: assembling plasmids from whole genome sequencing data

Motivation: Plasmids are stably maintained extra-chromosomal genetic elements that replicate independently from the host cell's chromosomes. Although plasmids harbor biomedically important genes, (such as genes involved in virulence and antibiotics resistance), there is a shortage of specialized software tools for extracting and assembling plasmid data from whole genome sequencing projects. Results: We present the plasmidSPAdes algorithm and software tool for assembling plasmids from whole genome sequencing data and benchmark its performance on a diverse set of bacterial genomes.