BOL: Related items

JCVI:Python utility libraries on genome assembly, annotation and comparative genomics

Jit — Tue, 17 Mar 2020 06:19:06 -0500

Collection of Python libraries to parse bioinformatics files, or perform computation related to assembly, annotation, and comparative genomics.

https://github.com/tanghaibao/jcvi

More at https://github.com/tanghaibao/jcvi/wiki

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/tanghaibao/jcvi

Synteny Portal: a web-based application portal for synteny block analysis

Jit — Wed, 24 May 2017 10:39:23 -0500

Synteny Portal, a versatile web-based application portal for constructing, visualizing and browsing synteny blocks. With Synteny Portal, users can easily (i) construct synteny blocks among multiple species by using prebuilt alignments in the UCSC genome browser database, (ii) visualize and download syntenic relationships as high-quality images, (iii) browse synteny blocks with genetic information and (iv) download the details of synteny blocks to be used as input for downstream synteny-based analyses, all in an intuitive and easy-to-use web-based interface. We believe that Synteny Portal will serve as a highly valuable tool that will enable biologists to easily perform comparative genomics studies by compensating limitations of existing tools. Synteny Portal is freely available at http://bioinfo.konkuk.ac.kr/synteny_portal.

http://bioinfo.konkuk.ac.kr/synteny_portal/

Address of the bookmark: http://bioinfo.konkuk.ac.kr/synteny_portal/

irishgrid: Irish Grid Mapping System

Jit — Fri, 26 Dec 2014 07:53:24 -0600

Perl module for creating geographic 10km-square maps using either SVG or PNG (with GD library) output format.

Originally design to map the location of objects in a 10 km map IrishGrid includes:

native support of the Irish Grid System (see http://www.osi.ie/)
optimize for speed (there's as less as possible data to conversion)
customized color functions

https://code.google.com/p/irishgrid/downloads/detail?name=irishgrid.pl

Address of the bookmark: https://code.google.com/p/irishgrid/

Postdoctoral Researcher in Cancer Systems Biology

Mon, 12 Jan 2015 01:44:11 -0600

Postdoctoral Researcher in Cancer Systems Biology
Department of Oncology, Old Road Campus Research Building, Roosevelt Drive, Oxford
Grade 7: £30,434 - £37,394 with a discretionary range to £40,847 p.a.
Applications are invited for a Postdoctoral Researcher in Cancer Systems Biology to join a rapidly developing Bioinformatics Research Core group headed by Dr Anastasia Samsonova. The purpose of the role is to develop and deliver integrative approaches to dissect the complexity of cancer as a genomic disease. The research will focus on development and application of effective strategies for mining and integration of complex human *omics datasets and clinical/phenotypic data in cancer studies.

The role sits at the critical interface between genetics and cancer systems biology, and would suit a candidate who is interested in developing a career at the confluence of Statistics/Data Mining/Machine Learning and Biology. Ideally, you will have experience in development of analytical approaches to high-throughput and multivariate data mining and integration gained through a PhD (or equivalent) in a quantitative subject (eg mathematics, statistics, physics, engineering or computer science).

Experience of statistics and/or machine learning techniques is highly desirable as is evidence of prior experience of developing bioinformatics software and/or analysing complex *omics data sets. You will be able to work as part of a team and independently and deliver results to the required standard and schedule. You should be able to organise and prioritise your own work, as well as have excellent communication skills, both written and oral. The post will involve interactions with collaborators from such diverse fields as applied mathematics, statistics, computer science and medicine.

This is a full-time post, fixed-term until 31 March 2017. For informal enquiries, contact Dr Anastasia Samsonova (bioinformatics@oncology.ox.ac.uk).

All applicants must complete a short application form and upload a CV and supporting statement.

The closing date for applications is 12.00 noon on 26 January 2015.

More at https://www.recruit.ox.ac.uk/pls/hrisliverecruit/erq_jobspec_version_4.display_form

Oxford Nanopore Sequencing, Hybrid Error Correction, and de novo Assembly of a Eukaryotic Genome

Jit — Wed, 29 Nov 2017 05:08:53 -0600

Monitoring the progress of DNA molecules through a membrane pore has been postulated as a method for sequencing DNA for several decades. Recently, a nanopore-based sequencing instrument, the Oxford Nanopore MinION, has become available that we used for sequencing the S. cerevisiae genome. To make use of these data, we developed a novel open-source hybrid error correction algorithm Nanocorr (https://github.com/jgurtowski/nanocorr) specifically for Oxford Nanopore reads, as existing packages were incapable of assembling the long read lengths (5-50kbp) at such high error rate (between ~5 and 40% error). With this new method we were able to perform a hybrid error correction of the nanopore reads using complementary MiSeq data and produce a de novo assembly that is highly contiguous and accurate: the contig N50 length is more than ten-times greater than an Illumina-only assembly (678kb versus 59.9kbp), and has greater than 99.88% consensus identity when compared to the reference. Furthermore, the assembly with the long nanopore reads presents a much more complete representation of the features of the genome and correctly assembles gene cassettes, rRNAs, transposable elements, and other genomic features that were almost entirely absent in the Illumina-only assembly.

Address of the bookmark: http://schatzlab.cshl.edu/data/nanocorr/

Wtdbg2: a de novo sequence assembler for long noisy reads produced by PacBio or Oxford Nanopore

Neel — Fri, 19 Oct 2018 08:48:43 -0500

Wtdbg2 is a de novo sequence assembler for long noisy reads produced by PacBio or Oxford Nanopore Technologies (ONT). It assembles raw reads without error correction and then builds the consensus from intermediate assembly output. Wtdbg2 is able to assemble the human and even the 32Gb Axolotl genome at a speed tens of times faster than CANU and FALCONwhile producing contigs of comparable base accuracy.

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/ruanjue/wtdbg2

Professor of Bioinformatics

Sat, 15 Aug 2026 12:39:03 -0500

The Department of Statistics are seeking to recruit a Professor of Bioinformatics. The professorship will be held alongside a Fellowship at University College.

The Department is at the forefront of developments in machine learning, data science, and computational methods for understanding complex biological systems, integrating these approaches into both its research and teaching. This role offers significant scope to shape the future of bioinformatics and quantitative biology at Oxford and beyond.

You will be expected to develop and lead a world-class research programme in bioinformatics, helping to strengthen Oxford's position in areas such as statistical genomics, computational biology, machine learning for biological data, engineering biology, systems biology, and biomedical data science. We value the breadth of approaches that contribute to modern bioinformatics. Whatever your particular focus, you will understand how quantitative and computational methods can be applied to important biological and biomedical questions, and how collaboration across disciplines can generate new insights and opportunities. Alongside your own research, you will support the development of doctoral students, postdoctoral researchers, and early-career academics. You will contribute to our teaching at undergraduate and postgraduate level, delivering lectures, supervising student projects, and supporting graduate research students.

We are looking for someone who combines scholarly distinction with a collaborative and ambitious approach to research. You will be a researcher with an international reputation in bioinformatics, with a strong record of producing influential research at the interface of statistics, computational biology, genomics, and data science, and of securing research funding. Your work should advance the field, whether through methodological innovation, biological discovery, or the development of new approaches to understanding complex biological and biomedical data. You will bring experience of shaping research strategy, building productive collaborations, and exercising academic leadership. Above all, we wish to appoint someone who shares our values of intellectual curiosity, academic excellence, scholarly integrity, and a commitment to fostering a positive, supportive, and inclusive environment for all.

If you would like to discuss this post, please contact the Head of the Department of Statistics, Professor Frank Windmeijer, frank.windmeijer@stats.ox.ac.uk, or for information about University College please contact the Senior Tutor, Dr Andrew Bell, andrew.bell@univ.ox.ac.uk. All enquiries will be treated in strict confidence and will not form part of the selection decision.

The closing date for applications is 12:00 noon UK time on Monday 21 September 2026. Interviews are expected to be held in November 2026.

Apply here https://my.corehr.com/pls/uoxrecruit/erq_jobspec_version_4.display_form

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/

Murasaki

Anjana — Fri, 30 Sep 2016 10:22:30 -0500

Murasaki is an anchor alignment program that is

exteremely fast (17 CPU hours for whole Human x Mouse genome (with 40 nodes: 35 wall minutes), or 8 mammals in 21 CPU hours (42 wall minutes))
scalable (Arbitrarily parallelizable across multiple nodes using MPI)
memory efficient. (Even a single node with 16GB of ram can handle over 1Gbp of sequence)
unlimited by pattern length or selection
repeat tolerant

Address of the bookmark: http://murasaki.dna.bio.keio.ac.jp/wiki/index.php?Murasaki

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/