A text file that contain the sequence information and quality scores per read
Written by Rani Powers, PhD
A FASTQ file contains four details for each read in the following format:
![](https://help.pluto.bio/hubfs/Knowledge%20Base%20Import/pluto-b2e83dbf1319.intercom-attachments-1.comio397583560de1d1ffcd817a09b7577f7ccfastq_files_explained_image.png)
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Sequence identifier and/or a description
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Sequence letters
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+ and/or repeat of line 1 details
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Encoding of line 2 with the same amount of letters/characters
Line 4 provides the quality of the sequence in line 2 using a 21 character code, where each symbol stands for a certain level of quality. The code is provided below, with the “!” representing the lowest quality and “~” representing the highest.
!"#$%&'()*+,-./0123456789:;<=>?@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[\]^_`abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz{|}~
For more details click here.