In order to overcome the limitations imposed by DNA barcoding when multiplexing a
large number of samples in the current generation of high-throughput sequencing
instruments, we have recently proposed a new protocol that leverages advances in
combinatorial pooling design (group testing) doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1003010. We have also
demonstrated how this new protocol would enable de novo selective sequencing and assembly
of large, highly-repetitive genomes. Here we address the problem of decoding pooled
sequenced data obtained from such a protocol. Our algorithm employs a synergistic
combination of ideas from compressed sensing and the decoding of error-correcting codes.
Experimental results on synthetic data for the rice genome and real data for the barley
genome show that our novel decoding algorithm enables significantly higher quality
assemblies than the previous approach.