Fig. 4

Random-mer molecular barcode characterization. a Processing workflow. The combined 12 bp random-mer sequences for each read (6 bp each for read 1 and read 2) in each EXB group are extracted. These represent new artefactual reads that are fed into downstream bioinformatic pipelines. b Comparison of EXB and random-mer workflows. After creating new artefactual reads, the two sets of reads are fed through identical pipelines for analysis. c Rate of mismatches found in random-mer sequences for each EXB group. Only EXB groups containing more than one read are considered. For each group of 12 bp random-mer sequences, the presence of any mismatches between them are considered and plotted as a function of the number of reads inside the EXB read group. The 12 bp random-mer sequence groups are also divided into 6 bp sequence groups corresponding to reads 1 and 2. One million reads from each library are pooled and grouped by paired-end EXB sequence