BOL: Related items

Tools to detect synteny blocks regions among multiple genomes

Jitendra Narayan — Mon, 16 Sep 2013 17:12:02 -0500

The synteny block (which etymologically means “on the same ribbon”) is a collection of contiguous genes located on the same chromosome. These block regions have mostly been preserved by genome rearrangements, and so synteny blocks from two related species (e.g., humans and mice) will be roughly similar but flipped around on the respective genomes. Ovcharenko et. al. define it as ‘any conserved sequence blocks, regardless of whether it encompasses multiple genes, an area containing single genes, or areas devoid of known genes to be considers as synteny block as long as there is conservation at the sequence level. Today, however, biologists usually refer to synteny as the conservation of blocks of order within two sets of chromosomes that are being compared with each other. This concept can also be referred to as shared synteny. The NHBLI/NCBI Glossary define synteny as “Two genes which occur on the same chromosome are syntenic; however, syntenic genes may or may not be "linked."

Now a day, geneticists have developed a language of their own. They are pouring lots of money and energy to read the entire genomic text and understand the gods own code ATGC. It is somewhat fascinating, not only for geneticist but also for non-biologist to know that there are several conserved blocks in genome which remain conserved over hundreds of millions of years. There have been several researches on conserved blocks and non-conserved regions to understand the mechanism and importance of all these regions (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2675965/). The finding indicates conservation and rearrangements of certain evolutionary important genes play an important role in evolution/adaptive changes (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v491/n7424/abs/nature11622.html https://academic.oup.com/gbe/article/8/8/2442/2198198/Novel-Insights-into-Chromosome-Evolution-in-Birds , http://science.sciencemag.org/content/346/6215/1311).

But the puzzle remains open, how to correctly define the synteny (presence of two or more genes on the same chromosome) and conserved synteny (presence of two or more genes on chromosome of each of the two species) on several genomes.

Figure: Image generated with Evolution Highway (EH) tool http://eh-demo.ncsa.illinois.edu/

Keeping the new approach to define conserved synteny in mind there have been various algorithms developed to identify the conserved homologous synteny blocks (HSB) amongst species. Some of them which were commonly used for synteny detections are:

SyntenyTracker ( http://www-app.igb.uiuc.edu/labs/lewin/donthu/Synteny_assign/html/),

SyntenyTracker was shown to be an efficient and accurate automated tool for defining HSBs using datasets that may contain minor errors resulting from limitations in map construction methodologies.

CoGe (http://genomevolution.org/CoGe/SynFind.pl )

Satsuma (http://evomics.org/learning/genomics/satsuma/)

Cinteny (http://cinteny.cchmc.org/) ,

Cinteny server can be used for finding regions syntenic across multiple genomes and measuring the extent of genome rearrangement using reversal distance as a measure.

OrthoCluster (http://krono.act.uji.es/noticias/orthocluster-a-new-tool-for-mining-syntenic-blocks)

A new tool for mining syntenic blocks in comparative genomics

SynMap (http://genomevolution.org/wiki/index.php/SynMap),

SyMAP (http://www.symapdb.org/)

SyMAP (Synteny Mapping and Analysis Program) v4.0 is an automated system for identifying and displaying genome synteny alignments. The genomes may be represented by sequenced chromosomes (pseudomolecules), by draft sequence contigs, or by FPC physical maps (with BAC-end or marker sequence).

http://genomevolution.org/CoGe/SynMap.pl

RegionMiner (http://www.genomatix.de/online_help/help_regionminer/orthologous.html)

SyntenyMiner is being developed as an application to visualize and interrogate comparisons among multiple complete genome sequences. http://syntenyminer.sourceforge.net/

AutoGRAPH ( http://autograph.genouest.org/),

AutoGRAPH is an integrated web server for multi-species comparative genomic analysis. It is designed for constructing and visualizing synteny maps between two or three species, determination and display of macrosynteny and microsynteny relationships among species, and for highlighting evolutionary breakpoints.

SynChro(http://www.lgm.upmc.fr/CHROnicle/SynChro.html)

SynChro is a tool designed to define conserved synteny blocks. It reconstructs synteny blocks between pairwise comparison of multiple genomes. The reconstructed synteny blocks may overlap each other, be included in one another or duplicated due to micro-rearrangements.

SyntenyView ( http://www.cbs.dtu.dk/dtucourse/cookbooks/nikob/exercises/gf1_output_5.html),

Ensembl 'SyntenyView' shows conservation of large-scale gene order between species pairs. A brief summary of the calculation method appears at the bottom of this help page. The left of a 'SyntenyView' page displays a diagram of chromosomes with blocks of conserved synteny. The right of a page shows homology matches between individual genes within syntenic blocks.

SynBrowse ( http://www.synbrowse.org/),

SynBrowse (Synteny Browser) is a generic sequence comparison tool for visualizing genome alignments both within and between species. It is intended to help scientists study and analyze synteny, homologous genes and other conserved elements between sequences. This software is useful in studying genome duplication and evolution. It can also aid in identifying uncharacterized genes, putative regulatory elements and novel structural features of study species by comparing to a well annotated reference sequence, thus enabling genome curators to refine and edit annotations of species that have incomplete genome annotations.

Sibelia (http://arxiv.org/abs/1307.7941).

A comparative genomic tool: It assists biologists in analysing the genomic variations that correlate with pathogens, or the genomic changes that help microorganisms adapt in different environments. Sibelia will also be helpful for the evolutionary and genome rearrangement studies for multiple strains of microorganisms.

GSV (http://cas-bioinfo.cas.unt.edu/gsv/homepage.php)

Genome Synteny Viewer allows users to upload files which contain synteny regions between two or more genomes and interactively visualize the synteny between them. GSV also allows users to upload annotation files to visualize annotated regions in addition to synteny regions.

MicroSyn (http://www.lgm.upmc.fr/CHROnicle/SynChro.html)

MicroSyn software as a means of detecting microsynteny in adjacent genomic regions surrounding genes in gene families. MicroSyn searches for conserved, flanking colinear homologous gene pairs between two genomic fragments to determine the relationship between two members in a gene family.

SynOrth (http://synorth.genereg.net/)

Synorth [s n ôrth], named in combination of "synteny" and "ortholog", is designed for the study of evolutionary changes of genomic regulatory blocks (GRBs) in vertebrate genomes, and especially the changes following the whole-genome duplication in teleost fish, by tracing the ortholog genes gain and loss in ancient synteny blocks.

SyDiG (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21441096)

Uncovering Synteny in Distant Genomes.

MapSynteny (http://www.automatizacionysistemas.com/download.html)

MapSynteny is a macro in MS Excel® able to create images to show the relationship between genetic maps and large sequences (scaffolds, chromosomes, BACs, etc.). Based on tab – delimited BLAST results and some formulas, a suitable image of syntenic relationships or physical mapping can be obtained. http://www.automatizacionysistemas.com/Poster_MapSynteny.pdf

One of the best synteny tutorial for beginer @ http://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/synteny-inferring-ancestral-genomes-44022

Reference:

http://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/synteny-inferring-ancestral-genomes-44022

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v491/n7424/full/nature11622.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synteny

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2675965/

Bioinformatician duties and jobs !!!

Jitendra Narayan — Wed, 05 Mar 2014 14:32:26 -0600

Needle in a haystack ... ohh yes this is what bioinformatician do. We handle and analyse, Terabytes and Petabytes of genomic data on daily basis.

Alignment of closely related whole genomes/scaffolds

Rahul Nayak — Fri, 29 Jan 2016 10:37:27 -0600

With the relative ease and low cost of current generation sequencing technologies has led to a dramatic increase in the number of sequenced genomes for species across the tree of life. This increasing volume of data requires tools that can quickly compare multiple whole-genome sequences, millions of base pairs in length, to aid in the study of populations, pan-genomes, and genome evolution.This bookmaks have been created to report new tools for whole genome alignments.

Please report new whole genome alignment tools under comment sections.

Address of the bookmark: http://www.cs.utoronto.ca/~brudno/721.full.pdf

List of genome announcement, notes and reporting journals

Jit — Wed, 26 Jul 2017 08:01:38 -0500

Faced with an increasing number of articles describing DNA data and a need for more appropriate venues to present these data, some publishers and journals have responded by changing the structure and format of genome papers. Specifically, certain journals have started accepting very short manuscripts (500–1500 words) that present a new chromosome sequence, its GenBank accession number and little else. These pint-sized articles go by various names, such as genome reports, genome announcements, genome notes or genome letters, but will be referred to here broadly as genome reports. Their short length and minimal number (or complete absence) of figures, tables and article subheadings are a significant departure from long-form genome papers, which typically span 8–10 journal pages, contain many supporting items and have formal introduction, methods, results and discussion sections.

Following are the list of journals publishing pint-sized articles go by various names, such as genome reports, genome announcements, genome notes or genome letters, but will be referred to here broadly as genome reports.

1. Genome Announcements, American Society for Microbiology, Genome announcement, Impact factor 1.3, A 500-word report stating that the genome of a particular organism (prokaryote, eukaryote or virus) has been sequenced and providing a citable record of the corresponding GenBank submission. Must include abstract but no text headings can be used except for ‘Acknowledgments’ and ‘References’. Cannot include figures, tables or supplemental material to present data or analysis.

Link: https://mra.asm.org/

2. Genome Biology and Evolution, Oxford University Press, Genome report, Impact factor 4.2, Focused 1500-word papers (up to six tables or figures) that publish the main evolutionary message of new genome sequences as they become submitted to GenBank. May also contain specifically focused comparative analyses of previously published genomes that contain a substantial and novel insight of broadest evolutionary significance.

Link: https://academic.oup.com/gbe

3. Journal of Biotechnology, Elsevier, Genome announcement, Impact factor 2.9, A 500-word report announcing the availability of the completely annotated genome sequence of a biotechnologically relevant organism in the corresponding database (for eukaryotes, advanced draft genomes will also be considered). Articles can contain an Abstract, a brief report on the organism and its biotechnological relevance, a table summarizing the genome features, References and an Acknowledgement. Figures are generally not allowed.

Link: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-biotechnology

4. Journal of Genomics, Ivyspring, Genome note, Impact factor N/A, A 1000-word report (10 reference limit; conclusions not permitted) describing novel data sets from high-throughput analysis of genotypes, phenotypes, gene expression, metabolomes, proteomes or genome assemblies.Standard metrics for data quality and the experimental design must be clearly reported.

Link: http://www.jgenomics.com/

5. Memórias do Instituto, Oswaldo Cruz Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, Genome announcement and highlight, Impact factor 1.6, Dedicated to publishing new genome information from eukaryote parasites, virus, bacteria and their respective vectors, as well as re-sequencing or comparative genome analyses. Should occupy no more than three printed pages including figures and/or tables.

Link: http://memorias.ioc.fiocruz.br/

6. Molecular Ecology Resources, Wiley, Genomic resources note, Impact factor 3.7, Short notes on newly assembled and annotated transcriptomes, genome fractions or whole genomes, and/or a library of SNP/SSR markers.Authors submit a short manuscript describing how the resource was developed and where the data can be accessed. Do not appear in journal as individual papers but are instead published as part of a summary article.

Link: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/17550998

7. Standards in Genomic Science, BioMed Central (Springer), Short genome report, Impact factor 3.2, Short (∼500-word) article on newly sequenced genome. Article format must follow guidelines and template (available from journal Web site) put forward by the SGS. Any manuscripts not using template or that are missing key figures, tables and/or references (as per the guidelines) will be returned to authors. Rationale of the content model is to provide information that is consistently and uniformly presented for rapid and easy consumption by both human and machine readers.

Link: https://standardsingenomics.biomedcentral.com/

8. 3biotech, Springer, Short genome report, Impact factor 1.3, Short (∼500-word) article on newly sequenced genome. Article format must follow guidelines (available from journal Web site). Genome of a particular organism (prokaryote, eukaryote or virus) has been sequenced and providing a citable record of the corresponding GenBank submission.

Link: https://link.springer.com/journal/13205

MeDuSa: a multi-draft based scaffolder

Abhimanyu Singh — Wed, 14 Feb 2018 02:49:00 -0600

MeDuSa (Multi-Draft based Scaffolder), an algorithm for genome scaffolding. MeDuSa exploits information obtained from a set of (draft or closed) genomes from related organisms to determine the correct order and orientation of the contigs. MeDuSa formalises the scaffolding problem by means of a combinatorial optimisation formulation on graphs and implements an efficient constant factor approximation algorithm to solve it. In contrast to currently used scaffolders, it does not require either prior knowledge on the microrganisms dataset under analysis (e.g. their phylogenetic relationships) or the availability of paired end read libraries.

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/combogenomics/medusa

List of universities offering Bachelor or Master bioinformatics degree in Pakistan

Reshma Khatun — Wed, 21 Jun 2017 04:20:43 -0500

There are a lot of universities offering Bachelor or Master degree in Pakistan. Following are the list of few intitute/universities

Bachelor/ BS Bioinformatics at
1. Al-khair University, Bhimber
2. Government College University, Faisalabad
3. University Of Agriculture, Faisalabad
4. Comsats Institute Of Information Technology [isb], Islamabad
5. International Islamic University, Islamabad
6. Quaid-e-azam University, Islamabad
7. Khushal Khan Khattak University, Karak
8. Virtual University Of Pakistan, Lahore
9. Virtual University Of Pakistan, Lahore
10. Hazara University, Mansehra
11. Shaheed Benazir Bhutto Women University, Peshawar
12. Comsats Institute Of Information Technology, Sahiwal
13. Capital University Of Science And Technology, Islamabad
14. Foundation University, Islamabad
15. Baqai Medical University/hospital, Karachi
16. Institute Of Business And Technology(main Campus), Karachi
17. Sir Syed University Of Engineering & Technology, Karachi
18. Forman Christian College, Lahore
19. Qarshi University (lhr), Lahore
20. The Superior University, Lahore
21. University Of Management And Technology, Lahore
22. Federal Institute Of Health Sciences, Lahore
23. Shaheed Benazir Bhutto Women University Peshawar, Sub Campus, Swabi
24. Government Postgraduate College ( Mandian), Abbottabad
25. Federal Institute Of Health Sciences, Multan
26. Fedral Institute Of Health Sciences, Muzaffarabad
27. The Limit Institution Of Health Sciences, Sahiwal

Master/ MS Bioinformatics cources at
1. Government College University, Faisalabad
2. Comsats Institute Of Information Technology [isb], Islamabad
3. International Islamic University, Islamabad
4. National University Of Science & Technology, Islamabad
5. Quaid-e-azam University, Islamabad
6. University Of Sindh, Jamshoro
7. Virtual University Of Pakistan, Lahore
8. Hazara University, Mansehra
9. Shaheed Benazir Bhutto Women University, Peshawar
10. Capital University Of Science And Technology, Islamabad
11. Cecos University Of Information Tech. & Emerging Sciences, Peshawar

The real bioinformatics scope lies if there are research labs which work in this field. One has to take account of that. If so then try to get information of those labs and visit them to get a hang of the work they pursue.

There is a huge buzz of precision medicine in light of genomics all around the world. One should also try to see how genomics infrastructure is built up or standing in Pakistan. If research labs having collaboration with hospitals employ genomics then one must also visit such labs. This will bring new avenues in healthcare advances. Not only it opens up the wealth of knowledge one can make out of genomics study but will also advance the critical thinking of therapies.

So I would encourage to target research labs working in the fields and also get information of hospitals employing genomics, this will give you an overall understanding of the fields demand in your country.

GMOL: An Interactive Tool for 3D Genome Structure Visualization

Jit — Wed, 21 Mar 2018 12:25:20 -0500

GMOL was developed based upon our multi-scale approach that allows a user to scale between six separate levels within the genome. With GMOL, a user can choose any unit at any scale and scale it up or down to visualize its structure and retrieve corresponding genome sequences.

Address of the bookmark: https://www.nature.com/articles/srep20802

GMcloser: closing gaps in assemblies accurately with a likelihood-based selection of contig or long-read alignments

Shruti Paniwala — Mon, 11 Jun 2018 05:43:44 -0500

GMcloser uses likelihood-based classifiers calculated from the alignment statistics between scaffolds, contigs and paired-end reads to correctly assign contigs or long reads to gap regions of scaffolds, thereby achieving accurate and efficient gap closure. We demonstrate with sequencing data from various organisms that the gap-closing accuracy of GMcloser is 3–100-fold higher than those of other available tools, with similar efficiency. https://academic.oup.com/bioinformatics/article/31/23/3733/209212

Address of the bookmark: https://academic.oup.com/bioinformatics/article/31/23/3733/209212

ComparativeGenomics Exercise2

Neel — Wed, 22 Aug 2018 22:10:56 -0500

COMPARATIVE MICROBIAL GENOMICS ANALYSIS WORKSHOP @ cbs.dtu.dk

Free Bioinformatics workbench https://www.mn.uio.no/ifi/english/research/networks/clsi/earlier_seminars/2012/tammivesth_osloseminarfinal.pdf

VGSC: A Web-Based Vector Graph Toolkit of Genome Synteny and Collinearity

Abhimanyu Singh — Tue, 30 Oct 2018 10:46:28 -0500

VGSC, the Vector Graph toolkit of genome Synteny and Collinearity, and its online service, to visualize the synteny and collinearity in the common graphical format, including both raster (JPEG, Bitmap, and PNG) and vector graphic (SVG, EPS, and PDF).

Address of the bookmark: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4783527/