In Akhter et al 2018 (doi: 10.3389/fpls.2018.01625) we presented a de Bruijn graph based method for transcriptome assembly using short (100-200 nt) sequence reads. The method as presented was specific for a gene family in spruce and required a number of crucial manual steps. We are now developing this method to be fully automated generally useful in spruce and also in other species. We are pursuing the following ideas: (i) hybrid assembly using both short and long sequence reads (we've started this work on local resources that are inadequate); (ii) using ant colony optimization for graph traversal (not started).