Technical and Biological reads difference

Question

[Kausik]

Hello all

Can someone help me in knowing the difference between the Technical reads and Biological reads in a .SRA file? While running fastq-dump or fasterq-dump the specific command ‘--split-technical’ command dumps only biological reads as mentioned by the both the tools ( fastq-dump and fasterq-dump )

Thank you

[GenoMax]

What Is A "Spot" In Sra Format

Answer 1

[lieven.sterck]

very briefly:

technical reads are derived from doing a technical repeat or alteration. Eg. you ran a sample on lane2 and on lane3 of your sequencer.

biologcial reads hold biologcial info (or are derived from a biological alteration in your experiment)

usually one is only interested in the the biological reads as the technical ones do not add any info on the biological question you want to see answered.

[Kausik]

Thank you :)