BOL: Related items

pyScaf

Bulbul — Mon, 19 Dec 2016 14:20:33 -0600

pyScaf orders contigs from genome assemblies utilising several types of information:

paired-end (PE) and/or mate-pair libraries (NGS-based mode)
long reads (NGS-based mode)
synteny to the genome of some related species (reference-based mode)

Scaffolding

In reference-based mode, pyScaf uses synteny to the genome of closely related species in order to order contigs and estimate distances between adjacent contigs.

Contigs are aligned globally (end-to-end) onto reference chromosomes, ignoring:

matches not satisfying cut-offs (--identity and --overlap)
suboptimal matches (only best match of each query to reference is kept)
and removing overlapping matches on reference.

In preliminary tests, pyScaf performed superbly on simulated heterozygous genomes based on C. parapsilosis (13 Mb; CANPA) and A. thaliana (119 Mb; ARATH) chromosomes, reconstructing correctly all chromosomes always for CANPA and nearly always for ARATH (Figures in dropbox, CANPA table, ARATH table).
Runs took ~0.5 min for CANPA on 4 CPUs and ~2 min for ARATH on 16 CPUs.

Important remarks:

Reduce your assembly before (fasta2homozygous.py) as any redundancy will likely break the synteny.
pyScaf works better with contigs than scaffolds, as scaffolds are often affected by mis-assemblies (no de novo assembler / scaffolder is perfect...), which breaks synteny.
pyScaf works very well if divergence between reference genome and assembled contigs is below 20% at nucleotide level.
pyScaf deals with large rearrangements ie. deletions, insertion, inversions, translocations. Note however, this is experimental implementation!
Consider closing gaps after scaffolding.

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/lpryszcz/pyScaf

MCscan

Bulbul — Thu, 22 Dec 2016 03:53:58 -0600

MCscan is a computer program that can simultaneously scan multiple genomes to identify homologous chromosomal regions and subsequently align these regions using genes as anchors. This is the toolset for generating the synteny correspondences in Plant Genome Duplication Database. It is intended as an easy-to-use and quick way to identify conserved gene arrays both within the same genome and across different genomes.

More at http://chibba.agtec.uga.edu/duplication/mcscan/

Address of the bookmark: http://chibba.agtec.uga.edu/duplication/mcscan/

MEME suite

Bulbul — Fri, 23 Dec 2016 08:49:55 -0600

Motif based sequence analysis suits

The MEME Suite allows the biologist to discover novel motifs in collections of unaligned nucleotide or protein sequences, and to perform a wide variety of other motif-based analyses.

The MEME Suite supports motif-based analysis of DNA, RNA and protein sequences. It provides motif discovery algorithms using both probabilistic (MEME) and discrete models (MEME), which have complementary strengths. It also allows discovery of motifs with arbitrary insertions and deletions (GLAM2). In addition to motif discovery, the MEME Suite provides tools for scanning sequences for matches to motifs (FIMO, MAST and GLAM2Scan), scanning for clusters of motifs (MCAST), comparing motifs to known motifs (Tomtom), finding preferred spacings between motifs (SpaMo), predicting the biological roles of motifs (GOMo), measuring the positional enrichment of sequences for known motifs (CentriMo), and analyzing ChIP-seq and other large datasets (MEME-ChIP).

The MEME Suite is comprised of a collection of tools that work together, as shown below. Not all the tools are available as webservices, so to get the full power of the MEME Suite you will need to download and install a local copy of the software. To see what has changed recently you can peruse the release notes.

http://meme-suite.org/

Address of the bookmark: http://meme-suite.org/

SpeedSeq

Jit — Fri, 20 Jan 2017 06:05:43 -0600

A flexible framework for rapid genome analysis and interpretation

C Chiang, R M Layer, G G Faust, M R Lindberg, D B Rose, E P Garrison, G T Marth, A R Quinlan, and I M Hall. SpeedSeq: ultra-fast personal genome analysis and interpretation. Nat Meth (2015). doi:10.1038/nmeth.3505.

http://www.nature.com/nmeth/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nmeth.3505.html

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/hall-lab/speedseq

SRF Bioinformatics at JNU

Tue, 24 Jan 2017 07:34:35 -0600

School of Life Sciences
Jawaharlal Nehru University
New Delhi 110067

Positions available

Applications were invited from for the following posts in an industry sponsored project. The project entitled "OsHK3b technology and Know How", valid for a period upto February, 2018.

Post 3: Senior Research Fellow (Computational Biologist / Metabolic engineering)

Salary: As per DBT rule.

Duration: All the above posts are purely temporary and liable to be terminated at any time without prior notice or ceased/withdrawn by the funding agency.

Age limit: The upper age limit for SRF shall be 32 years, which is relaxed upto 5 years in the case of candidates belonging to Schedule Castes/Schedule Tribes, Women, Physically Handicapped and OBC applicants.

Essential Qualifications: Masters/B Tech/Mtech in Basic Sciences with at least 2yrs of research experience in Bioinformatics/Computational Biology related to Database /portal building & maintenance, high throughput data handling and analysis etc. For M.Sc/B.Tech, Published paper in peer-reviewed Journal and for M.Tech, thesis submission in computational biology is a must. Selection preference will be given to candidates with a good knowledge of Python and/or R. Knowledge of JAVA will also get a special consideration.

Desired Skills: Will be expected to manage ongoing research activities in the project, interact with Experimental group, manage the project data analysis, prepare file reports and associated project work etc. Familiarity with plant systems biology and genomics /metabolite resources related to plant metabolomics is desirable.

1. The post applied for must be clearly written on the Envelope containing the application
2. Applications received after last date shall not be entertained, School will not be responsible for any postal delay.
3. No application will be accepted via hand delivery or via e-mail. Please send printed & signed applications with detailed CV on or before 31st January, 2017 by post to the following address:

Prof. Ashwani Pareek
(Project Investigator)
Stress Physiology and Molecular Biology Laboratory (Room No-413),
School of Life Sciences,
Jawaharlal Nehru University,
New Delhi, India – 110067
Email: ashwanipareek@gmail.com

iTOL: interactive Tree Of Life

Jit — Tue, 31 Jan 2017 05:56:30 -0600

Interactive Tree Of Life is an online tool for the display and manipulation of phylogenetic trees. It provides most of the features available in other tree viewers, and offers a novel circular tree layout, which makes it easy to visualize mid-sized tree (up to several thousand leaves). Trees can be exported to several graphical formats, both bitmap and vector based.

There are several pre-computed trees available for display, including the main Tree Of Life, described in Ciccarelli, et al., 2006. In addition to the precomputed trees, users can upload and display personal trees and data, using the 'Data upload' page or through a personal user account.

Address of the bookmark: http://itol.embl.de/

Open Positions in Pasini’s lab

Sat, 04 Feb 2017 08:17:18 -0600

Computational Biologists
Open to PhD-student and Post-doc candidates
We are looking for wet and computational biologists to work on an ERC funded project in our
laboratory located at the Department of Experimental Oncology of the European Institute of
Oncology in Milan (Italy). The project will focus on different aspects of the function of Polycomb
Group proteins and other chromatin modifying activities in relation to their role in regulating cellular
identity in the development of adult tissues.
The candidates will be in charge of computational analysis and data management related to the
project. She/he will directly interact with the wet scientists working in our laboratory while working
embedded in the community of computational biologists present at our institution. The work will
involve the analysis of sequencing data produced with cutting edge technologies to study gene
expression and chromatin environment including data produced on rare cell populations and single
cells. The applicants must have a good knowledge of programming in python/perl/java along with
strong statistical background and performing analysis in R platform. A biological background is
also recommended however it’s not mandatory for application.
Each applicant should submit a full CV (with a detailed description of her/his background,
expertise, achievements and publication records) together with a letter of intent and at least two
contacts for recommendations (for a post-doc position). Competitive salary will be offered based
on the experience of the candidate. Non Italian as well as Italian applicants that have been working
outside Italy (>3yrs.) will have the opportunity to benefit of a full tax deduction for the first three
years of contract.
Applications should be submitted as single PDF to diego.pasini@ieo.it

Lab https://www.ieo.it/en/RESEARCH/People/Researchers/Pasini-Diego/

Important Journals, Blogs and Forums for Bioinformaticians

Jit — Wed, 08 Feb 2017 09:15:31 -0600

Journals. Most journals have RSS feeds for their current updates.

Blogs. Some of these blogs are very relevant to bioinfo jobs. Others are more personal interest.

The OpenHelix Blog
Ensembl blog
Galaxy News
Blue Collar Bioinformatics
Homologus
Golden Helix - our 2 SNPs
Genomics Law Report
R-bloggers (aggregates feeds from >350 blogs about R)
Genomes Unzipped
Jason Moore's Epistasis Blog
23andMe - the Spitoon

Variance Explained: David Robinson’s blog (Data Scientist at Stack Overflow, works in R and Python).
Global Biodefense: News on pathogens, outbreaks, and preparedness, with periodic posts on genomics and bioinformatics-related developments and funding opportunities.
In between lines of code: Lex Nederbragt’s blog on biology, sequencing, bioinformatics, …
Simply Statistics: A statistics blog by Rafa Irizarry, Roger Peng, and Jeff Leek.
Bits of DNA: Reviews and commentary on computational biology by Lior Pachter (fair warning: dialogue here can get a bit heated!).
Blue Collar Bioinformatics: articles related tool validation and the open source bioinformatics community.
Microbiome Digest – Bik’s Picks: A daily digest of scientific microbiome papers, by Elisabeth Bik, Science Editor at uBiome.
Living in an Ivory Basement: Titus Brown’s blog on metagenomics, open science, testing, reproducibility, and programming.
Enseqlopedia: James Hadfield’s blog on all things NGS.
Epistasis Blog: Jason Moore’s computational biology blog.
RStudio Blog: announcements about new RStudio functionality, updates about the tidyverse, and more.
nextgenseek.com: Next-Gen Sequencing Blog covering new developments in NGS data & analysis.
RNA-Seq Blog: Transcriptome Research & Industry News.
The Allium: We all need a little humor in our lives. Like The Onion, but for science.

Forums.

JRF Bioinformatics job vacancies in Tezpur University

Tue, 14 Feb 2017 16:40:26 -0600

Memo No. DoRD/CSE/SSS/20-295/112-A Date: 01/02/2017

Project Title : Integrating genome scale metabolic analysis of model plant pathogen Ralstonia solanacearum with RNAseq and fluxomics

Essential qualification : M.Tech. in CSE/IT (With specialization in Computational Biology/Bioinformatics) or M.Sc. in Bioinformatics/Biosciences/Molecular Biology Biotechnology preferably with NET/GATE/BET. Candidates should have minimum 55 % mark both in 10th and 10+2 Science examinations and mathematics at 10+2 Science. Desirable: Preference will be given to the candidates having experience in computational analysis of genome sequences or similar projects.

No. of Post : 01

Remuneration : Rs. 25,000/- for the 1st two years and Rs. 28,000/- for the 3rd year for SRF and applicable to the candidate having post graduate degree in Basic Science with NET/GATE/BET qualification or post graduate degree in professional course. Rs. 12,000/- for the 1st two years and Rs. 14,000/- for the 3 rd year for SRF,

Age : 28 years

Duration : Three (03) years or till completion of the project or until further order, whichever is earlier.

Hiring Process : Walk - In
Job Role: Research/JRF/SRF

Walk-in-interview will be held on 17th February, 2017, 11.15 a.m. at the office of the Head, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Tezpur University.

Interested candidates may appear before the interview board with original documents from 10th standard onwards and photocopies of mark sheets, certificates, testimonials, caste certificate (if applicable), experience certificate certificates of NET/GATE/BET or similar examination qualifications, any other testimonials and a copy of recent curriculum vitae (CV) on the day of interview.

More at http://www.tezu.ernet.in/ProjectWalkin/Advt-DoRD-CSE-SSS-20-295-112-A.pdf

BRIG

Jit — Thu, 16 Feb 2017 13:14:25 -0600

BRIG is a free cross-platform (Windows/Mac/Unix) application that can display circular comparisons between a large number of genomes, with a focus on handling genome assembly data. The application is available at:http://sourceforge.net/projects/brig

If you have any questions or comments, post them on one of the trackers on BRIG’s SourceForge page:http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=328245.

Features:

Images show similarity between a central reference sequence and other sequences as concentric rings.
BRIG will perform all BLAST comparisons and file parsing automatically via a simple GUI.
Contig boundaries and read coverage can be displayed for draft genomes; customized graphs and annotations can be displayed.
Using a user-defined set of genes as input, BRIG can display gene presence, absence, truncation or sequence variation in a set of complete genomes, draft genomes or even raw, unassembled sequence data.
BRIG also accepts SAM-formatted read-mapping files enabling genomic regions present in unassembled sequence data from multiple samples to be compared simultaneously

Address of the bookmark: http://brig.sourceforge.net/