Results: We present Cnidaria, a practical tool for clustering genomic and transcriptomic data with no limitation on ge-nome size or phylogenetic distances. We successfully simultaneously clustered 169 genomic and transcriptomic datasets from 4 kingdoms, achieving 100% accuracy at supra-species level and 78% accuracy for species level.

Availability and Implementation: Cnidaria is written in C++ and Python and is available at http://www.ab.wur.nl/cnidaria.

Contact: Saulo Aflitos - sauloal@gmail.com

Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/sauloal/cnidaria/wiki

Address of the bookmark: http://biobits.org/samtools_primer.html

bcftools: a set of companion tools, currently bundled with SAMtools, for identifying and filtering genomics variants.

bowtie: widely used, open source alignment software for aligning raw sequence reads to a reference genome.

BAM Format: binary, compressed format for storing SAM data.

BCF Format: Binary call format. Binary, compressed format for storing VCF data.

CIGAR String: Compact Idiosyncratic Gapped Alignment Report. A compact string that (partially) summarizes the alignment of a raw sequence read to the reference genome. Three core abbreviations are used: M for alignment match; I for insertion; and D for Deletion. For example, a CIGAR string of 5M2I63M indicates that the first 5 base pairs of the read align to the reference, followed by 2 base pairs, which are unique to the read, and not in the reference genome, followed by an additional 63 base pairs of alignment.

FASTA Format: text format for storing raw sequence data. For example, the FASTA file at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nuccore/NC_008253 contains entire genome for Escherichia coli 536.

FASTQ Format: text format for storing raw sequence data along with quality scores for each base; usually generated by sequencing machines.

genotype likelihood: the probability that a specific genotype is present in the sample of interest. Genotype likelihoods are usually expressed as a Phred-scaled probability, where P = 10 ^ (-Q/10). For example, if the genotype TT (both alleles are T) at position 1,299,132 in human chromosome 12 (reference G) is 37, this translates to a probability of 10^-37/10 = 0.0001995, meaning that there is very low probability that the reads in your sample support a TT genotype. On the other hand, a genotype of AA at the same position with a score of 0 translates into a probability of 10^-0 = 1, indicating extremely high probability that your sample contains a homozygous mutation of G to A.

mate-pair: in paired-end sequencing, both ends of a single DNA or RNA fragment are sequenced, but the intermediate region is not. The two ends which are sequenced form a pair, and are frequently referred to as mate-pairs.

QNAME: unique identifier of a raw sequence read (also known as the Query Name). Used in FASTQ and SAM files.

paired-end sequencing: sequencing process where both ends of a single DNA or RNA fragment are sequenced, but the intermediate region is not. Particularly useful for identifying structural rearrangements, including gene fusions.

Phred-scaled probability: a scaled value (Q) used to compactly summarize a probability, where P = 10^-Q/10. For example, a Phred Q score of 10 translates to probability (P) = 10^-10/10 = 0.1. Phred-scaled probabilities are common in next-generation sequencing, and are used to represent multiple types of quality metrics, including quality of base calls, quality of mappings, and probabilities associated with specific genotypes. The name Phred refers to the original Phred base-calling software, which first used and developed the scale.

Phred quality score: a score assigned to each base within a sequence, quantifying the probability that the base was called incorrectly. Scores use a Phred-scaled probability metric. For example, a Phred Q score of 10 translates to P=10^-10/10 = 0.1, indicating that the base has a 0.1 probability of being incorrect. Higher Phred score correspond to higher accuracy. In the FASTQ format, Phred scores are represented as single ASCII letters. For details on translating between Phred scores and ASCII values, refer to Table 1 of this useful blog post from Damian Gregory Allis.

read-length: the number of base pairs that are sequenced in an individual sequence read.

read-depth: the number of sequence reads that pile up at the same genomic location. For example, 30X read-depth coverage indicates that the genomic location is covered by 30 independent sequencing reads. Increased read-depth translates into higher confidence for calling genomic variants.

RNAME: reference genome identifier (also known as the Reference Name). Within a SAM formatted file, the RNAME identifies the reference genome where the raw read aligns.

SAM Flag: a single integer value (e.g. 16), which encodes multiple elements of meta-data regarding a read and its alignment. Elements include: whether the read is one part of a paired-end read, whether the read aligns to the genome, and whether the read aligns to the forward or reverse strand of the genome. A useful online utility decodes a single SAM flag value into plain English.

SAM Format: Text file format for storing sequence alignments against a reference genome. See also BAM Format.

SAMtools: widely used, open source command line tool for manipulating SAM/BAM files. Includes options for converting, sorting, indexing and viewing SAM/BAM files. The SAMtools distribution also includes bcftools, a set of command line tools for identifying and filtering genomics variants. Created by Heng Li, currently of the Broad Institute.

single-read sequencing: sequencing process where only one end of a DNA or RNA fragment is sequenced. Contrast with paired-end sequencing.

VCF Format: Variant call format. Text file format for storing genomic variants, including single nucleotide polymorphisms, insertions, deletions and structural rearrangements. See also BCF format.

NextGenerationSequencing
A high-throughput sequencing method which parallelizes the sequencing process, producing thousands or millions of sequences at once.

DeepSequencing
Techniques of nucleotide sequence analysis that increase the range, complexity, sensitivity, and accuracy of results by greatly increasing the scale of operations and thus the number of nucleotides, and the number of copies of each nucleotide sequenced.

Paired-EndSequencing
Sequence both ends of the same fragment and keep track of the paired data.

Adapter
Short oligonucleotides which are attached to the DNA to be sequenced. An adapter can provide a priming site for both amplification and sequencing of the adjoining, unknown nucleic acid.

Library
A collection of DNA fragments with adapters ligated to each end.

BridgeAmplification
Generation of in situ copies of a specific DNA molecule on an oligo-decorated solid support.

EmulsionPCR
A method for bead-based amplification of a library. A single adapter-bound fragment is attached to the surface of a bead, and an oil emulsion containing necessary amplification reagents is formed around the bead/fragment component. Parallel amplification of millions of beads with millions of single strand fragments produces a sequencer-ready library.

Alignment
Mapping of sequence reads to a known reference sequence

Referencesequence/genome 
A fully assembled version of a genome that can be used for mapping short DNA sequence reads for comparisons of genomes from various individuals

CoverageDepth
The number of nucleotides from reads that are mapped to a given position of reference genome.

Specificity 
The percentage of sequences that map to the intended targets out of total bases per run.

Uniformity 
The variability in sequence coverage across target regions.

Homopolymer
Uninterrupted stretch of a single nucleotide type (e.g., TTT or GGGGGG)

InDel
InDel stands for Insertion or deletion. A form of structural variation in which a DNA segment is either deleted or inserted.

SNP 

SNP stands for Single Nucleotide Polymorphism. A single base difference found when comparing the same DNA sequence from two different individuals.

WiseScaffolder is a stand-alone semi-automatic application for genome scaffolding of pre-assembled contigs using mate-pair data. It also produces editable scaffold maps, allowing either to build gapped scaffolds or usable as a common thread for the manual improvement of scaffolds.

Description 

WiseScaffolder includes 4 subcommands: dumpconfig generates a configuration file that notably specifies the average insert size of the mate-pair library preprocess allows the detection and correction of chimerae, the estimation of contigs copy number and produces valuable outputs for the manual improvement of scaffolds scaffold constitutes the central scaffold-builder and comprises two modules:

i) the interative_scaffold_extender, which works with big, unambiguous contigs, or when they run out, single copy contigs, and

ii) the small_contig_inserter, which inserts the small contigs within scaffolds buildfasta converts the scaffold(s) map(s) into Fasta sequences.

Address of the bookmark: http://abims.sb-roscoff.fr/wisescaffolder

Address of the bookmark: https://www.cbcb.umd.edu/software/valet

Address of the bookmark: http://www.repeatmasker.org/RepeatModeler.html

Following are the genome assembly tools based on string graph:

1.SGA (String Graph Assembler) https://github.com/jts/sga

Assembles large genomes from high coverage short read data. SGA is designed as a modular set of programs, which are used to form an assembly pipeline. SGA implements a set of assembly algorithms based on the FM-index. As the FM-index is a compressed data structure, the algorithms are very memory efficient. The SGA assembly has three distinct phases. The first phase corrects base calling errors in the reads. The second phase assembles contigs from the corrected reads. The third phase uses paired end and/or mate pair data to build scaffolds from the contigs. The output of this software is a PDF report that allows the properties of the genome and data quality to be visually explored. By providing more information to the user at the start of an assembly project, this software will help increase awareness of the factors that make a given assembly easy or difficult, assist in the selection of software and parameters and help to troubleshoot an assembly if it runs into problems.

2. SAGE: String-overlap Assembly of GEnomes https://github.com/lucian-ilie/SAGE2

SAGE, for de novo genome assembly. As opposed to most assemblers, which are de Bruijn graph based, SAGE uses the string-overlap graph. SAGE builds upon great existing work on string-overlap graph and maximum likelihood assembly, bringing an important number of new ideas, such as the efficient computation of the transitive reduction of the string overlap graph, the use of (generalized) edge multiplicity statistics for more accurate estimation of read copy counts, and the improved use of mate pairs and min-cost flow for supporting edge merging. The assemblies produced by SAGE for several short and medium-size genomes compared favourably with those of existing leading assemblers.

3. FSG: Fast String Graph

The new integrated assembler has been assessed on a standard benchmark, showing that fast string graph (FSG) is significantly faster than SGA while maintaining a moderate use of main memory, and showing practical advantages in running FSG on multiple threads. Moreover, we have studied the effect of coverage rates on the running times.

4.  BASE https://github.com/dhlbh/BASE

It enhances the classic seed-extension approach by indexing the reads efficiently to generate adaptive seeds that have high probability to appear uniquely in the genome. Such seeds form the basis for BASE to build extension trees and then to use reverse validation to remove the branches based on read coverage and paired-end information, resulting in high-quality consensus sequences of reads sharing the seeds. Such consensus sequences are then extended to contigs. BASE is a practically efficient tool for constructing contig, with significant improvement in quality for long NGS reads. It is relatively easy to extend BASE to include scaffolding.

5. Fermi https://github.com/lh3/fermi/

Fermi is a de novo assembler with a particular focus on assembling Illumina short sequence reads from a mammal-sized genome. In addition to the role of a typical assembler, fermi also aims to preserve heterozygotes which are often collapsed by other assemblers. Its ultimate goal is to find a minimal set of unitigs to represent all the information in raw reads.

If you want to learn about String Graph assembler, please read the following papers -

i) The Fragment Assembly String Graph - E. W. Myers

This paper describes the String Graph concept.

ii) Efficient construction of an assembly string graph using the FM-index - Jared T. Simpson and Richard Durbin

This earlier paper from Simpson and Durbin

iii) Efficient de novo assembly of large genomes using compressed data structures - Jared T. Simpson and Richard Durbin

y a number of metrics, including:

• Overall assembly length
• Number of scaffolds/contigs
• Length of longest scaffold/contig
• Scaffold/contig N50 and N90Assembly base composition, in particular percentage GC and percentage Ns
• CEGMA completeness
• Scaffold/contig length/count distribution

assembly-stats supports two widely used presentations of these values, tabular and cumulative length plots, and introduces an additional circular plot that summarises most commonly used assembly metrics in a single visualisation. Each of these presentations is generated using javascript from a common (JSON) data structure, allowing toggling between alternative views, and each can be applied to a single or multiple assemblies to allow direct comparison of alternate assemblies.

Tabular presentation allows direct comparison of exact values between assemblies, the limitations of this approach lie in the necessary omission of distributions and the challenge of interpreting ratios of values that may vary by several orders of magnitude.

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/rjchallis/assembly-stats

Ryan M Layer, Colby Chiang, Aaron R Quinlan, and Ira M Hall. 2014. "LUMPY: a Probabilistic Framework for Structural Variant Discovery." Genome Biology 15 (6): R84. doi:10.1186/gb-2014-15-6-r84.

More at https://github.com/arq5x/lumpy-sv

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/arq5x/lumpy-sv

Look for KaKs calculation:

https://github.com/fumba/kaks-calculator

http://longlab.uchicago.edu/?q=gKaKs

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23314322

Address of the bookmark: http://longlab.uchicago.edu/?q=gKaKs