BOL: Related items

IRscope: an online program to visualize the junction sites of chloroplast genomes

Neel — Wed, 25 Nov 2020 19:44:46 -0600

eMPRess, a software program for phylogenetic tree reconciliation under the duplication-transfer-loss model that systematically addresses the problems of choosing event costs and selecting representative solutions, enabling users to make more robust inferences.

Address of the bookmark: https://sites.google.com/g.hmc.edu/empress/home

Added video feature in BOL

Jitendra Narayan — Tue, 13 Aug 2013 17:42:16 -0500

Just in: Added video features in BOL, now you can watch and share your favourite bioinformatics video tutorials.

Share your favourite video tutorial or lectures on BOL at http://bioinformaticsonline.com/videolist/all . You can also add video in you groups.

Note: Other than bioinformatics video material/tutorial will be deleted without any prior warning.

Next generation sequencing(NGS) books

Abhimanyu Singh — Fri, 30 May 2014 04:48:04 -0500

Employing different technologies, the purpose of NGS platform is to decode the identity or modification on the nucleotides. NGS platforms evolve quickly and capture the main stream.

This bookmark is created to provide NGS online books links.

Address of the bookmark: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Next_Generation_Sequencing_%28NGS%29/Print_version

SNP Analysis: Unlocking the Secrets in Our DNA

Abhi — Wed, 16 Jul 2025 01:31:45 -0500

Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) are the most common type of genetic variation in humans—and many other organisms. A single base change in the DNA sequence (for example, an A instead of a G) can influence everything from our eye color to our risk of developing diseases. Analyzing these tiny changes has become central to modern genetics, medicine, agriculture, and evolutionary biology.

What are SNPs?
SNPs (pronounced "snips") are positions in the genome where individuals differ by a single nucleotide. For example:

Reference: ...A T G C A T G A...
Variant: ...A T G T A T G A...

Here, the C in the reference genome has been replaced by a T in the variant.

SNPs occur roughly every 300–1,000 bases in the human genome, meaning there are millions of them scattered throughout our DNA. Most SNPs have no effect on health, but some are linked to disease susceptibility, drug response, and other traits.

Why Do We Analyze SNPs?
1. Medical Genetics

Identify disease-associated variants (e.g., BRCA1/2 in breast cancer).

Predict drug response (pharmacogenomics).

Enable precision medicine by tailoring treatments.

2. Population Genetics & Ancestry

Trace human migration and ancestry.

Study genetic diversity within and between populations.

3. Agriculture & Animal Breeding

Select for desirable traits (drought resistance, yield, disease resistance).

Improve breeding efficiency in livestock.

4. Evolutionary Biology

Track natural selection.

Study adaptation in wild populations.

How is SNP Analysis Performed?
SNP analysis can be broadly divided into three steps:

SNP Detection
Genotyping arrays: Chips that test hundreds of thousands of known SNP positions simultaneously. Fast and affordable, widely used in consumer ancestry testing.

Whole-genome or whole-exome sequencing: Can detect known and novel SNPs across the genome.

Targeted sequencing or PCR: For focused analysis of specific regions.

Variant Calling
Sequencing data is aligned to a reference genome. Bioinformatics tools (e.g., GATK, bcftools) identify positions where the sequenced sample differs from the reference.

Annotation and Interpretation
Tools (e.g., SnpEff, VEP) predict the functional impact of SNPs.

Are the SNPs in coding regions? Do they cause amino acid changes? Are they known to be pathogenic?

Databases like dbSNP, ClinVar, and GWAS Catalog provide information on known associations.

Common Tools for SNP Analysis
Alignment: BWA, Bowtie2

Variant Calling: GATK, FreeBayes

Visualization: IGV, UCSC Genome Browser

Annotation: SnpEff, VEP

Statistical Analysis: PLINK, SNPTEST

Challenges in SNP Analysis
False positives/negatives: Sequencing errors, alignment issues.

Population stratification: Confounding in association studies.

Interpretation: Many SNPs have unknown or complex effects.

Researchers address these with rigorous quality control, large datasets, and increasingly sophisticated statistical models.

The Future of SNP Analysis
With advances in sequencing technology and AI-driven analysis, SNP studies are expanding:

Polygenic risk scores predict disease risk based on thousands of SNPs.

Large-scale biobanks (e.g., UK Biobank, All of Us) enable powerful genome-wide association studies (GWAS).

CRISPR and functional assays help validate SNP effects in the lab.

SNP analysis is at the heart of the genomic revolution, promising insights into biology, health, and evolution at unprecedented scale.

Conclusion
From diagnosing rare diseases to designing better crops, SNP analysis is a foundational tool in modern science. As our ability to sequence and interpret genomes improves, so will our understanding of these tiny—but mighty—variations in DNA.

Single Cell RNAseq data analysis tutorial !!

Robert M Willioms — Mon, 27 Nov 2017 16:24:29 -0600

A major breakthrough (replaced microarrays) in the late 00’s and has been widely used since
Measures the average expression level for each gene across a large population of input cells
Useful for comparative transcriptomics, e.g. samples of the same tissue from different species
Useful for quantifying expression signatures from ensembles, e.g. in disease studies
Insufficient for studying heterogeneous systems, e.g. early development studies, complex tissues (brain)
Does not provide insights into the stochastic nature of gene expression

Following are the useful links:

Single Cell RNAseq data analysis Tutorial

A step-by-step workflow for low-level analysis of single-cell RNA-seq data

A step-by-step workflow for low-level analysis of single-cell RNA-seq data with Bioconductor

SCell: single-cell RNA-seq analysis software

https://github.com/diazlab/SCell

Beta-Poisson model for single-cell RNA-seq data analyses

https://github.com/nghiavtr/BPSC

Sincera: A Computational Pipeline for Single Cell RNA-Seq Profiling Analysis

https://research.cchmc.org/pbge/sincera.html

SC3 – consensus clustering of single-cell RNA-Seq data

http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/09/02/036558

Citrus: A toolkit for single cell sequencing analysis

http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/09/14/045070

Single-Cell Resolution of Temporal Gene Expression during Heart Development

http://www.cell.com/developmental-cell/fulltext/S1534-5807(16)30682-7

Scalable latent-factor models applied to single-cell RNA-seq data separate biological drivers from confounding effects

http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/11/15/087775

Single cell transcriptomes identify human islet cell signatures and reveal cell-type-specific expression changes in type 2 diabetes

http://genome.cshlp.org/content/early/2016/11/18/gr.212720.116.abstract

SCODE: An efficient regulatory network inference algorithm from single-cell RNA-Seq during differentiation

http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/11/21/088856

SCOUP is a probabilistic model to analyze single-cell expression data during differentiation

https://github.com/hmatsu1226/SCOUP

scLVM is a modelling framework for single-cell RNA-seq data

https://github.com/PMBio/scLVM

Selective Locally linear Inference of Cellular Expression Relationships (SLICER) algorithm for inferring cell trajectories

https://github.com/jw156605/SLICER

SinQC: A Method and Tool to Control Single-cell RNA-seq Data Quality

http://www.morgridge.net/SinQC.html

TSCAN: Pseudo-time reconstruction and evaluation in single-cell RNA-seq analysis

https://github.com/zji90/TSCAN

Visualization and cellular hierarchy inference of single-cell data using SPADE

http://www.nature.com/nprot/journal/v11/n7/full/nprot.2016.066.html

OEFinder: Identify ordering effect genes in single cell RNA-seq data

https://github.com/lengning/OEFinder

Genome assembly training tutorial at Galaxy !

Jit — Sun, 27 Dec 2020 05:25:45 -0600

In this tutorial we assemble and annotate the genome of E. coli strain C-1. This strain is routinely used in experimental evolution studies involving bacteriophages. For instance, now classic works by Holly Wichman and Jim Bull (Bull 1997, Bull 1998, Wichman 1999) have been performed using this strain and bacteriophage phiX174.

Address of the bookmark: https://training.galaxyproject.org/training-material/topics/assembly/tutorials/unicycler-assembly/tutorial.html

GrapheR !!!

John Parker — Thu, 14 Aug 2014 14:02:17 -0500

What a wonderful gem GrapheR is.... Oh yes it is. GrapheR is a GUI for base graphics in R by http://www.maximeherve.com/. The package provides a graphical user interface for creating base charts in R. It is ideal for beginners in R, as the user interface is very clear and the code is written along side into a text file, allowing users to recreate the charts directly in the console.

Adding and changing legends? Messing around with the plotting window settings? It is much easier/quicker with this GUI than reading the help file and trying to understand the various parameters.
Here is a little example using the iris data set.

library(GrapheR)
data(iris)
run.GrapheR()

This will bring up a window that helps me to create the chart and tweak the various parameters.

Finally, I find the underlying R code in a file created by GrapheR. For more details read also the package vignette, which is available in English, French and German!

pybedtools

Shruti Paniwala — Wed, 20 Aug 2014 01:03:41 -0500

pybedtools is a Python wrapper for Aaron Quinlan's BEDtools programs (https://github.com/arq5x/bedtools), which are widely used for genomic interval manipulation or "genome algebra". pybedtools extends BEDTools by offering feature-level manipulations from with Python. See full online documentation, including installation instructions, at http://pythonhosted.org/pybedtools/.

More at http://pythonhosted.org/pybedtools/

A powerful toolset for genome arithmetic.http://code.google.com/p/bedtools/

NGS Online Training

Sat, 27 Sep 2014 07:42:29 -0500

ArrayGen Technologies announces to provide online NGS training through out the globe. Now analyze your own NGS datasets from anywhere.For more information contact us at training@arraygen.com

Please visit our site at www.arraygen.com

Internship Program for Bioinformatics / Biotechnology Professionals (No. Of Vacancy: 2)

Wed, 08 Oct 2014 01:10:08 -0500

ArrayGen is offering an Internship Program for Post graduate Bioinformatics / Biotechnology students and professionals. ArrayGen Technologies provide an excellent opportunity to gain research experience and explore if a scientific career is right for you. Currently we offer positions to outstanding students interested in Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) data analysis. Applications are accepted throughout the year. Accepted students will be listed on web with their schedules. Accepted students can attend our future workshops and trainings freely at the specified venue.