BOL: Related items

Dynamic chromosome breakpoints !!!

Jitendra Narayan — Wed, 13 Aug 2014 18:38:10 -0500

Cell division involves the distribution of identical genetic material, DNA, to two daughters’ cells. During this process, duplicated deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) goes through a condensation and decondensation process. This is followed by nuclear envelope dissolution, mitotic spindle assembly, migration of the sister chromatid pairs to the metaphase plate, division and segregation of identical sets of chromosomes into daughter nuclei and nuclear envelope reformation.

The vital metaphase stage of cell division, when the sister chromatids migrated to the centre and lined up in a row, and pulled apart using attached microtubules in such a way that half the DNA ends up in each daughter cell. However, before the mitotic spindle‐mediated movement gets start and pulled DNA apart, the chromosomes are free to undergo recombination which involves the exchange of genetic material either between multiple chromosomes or between different regions of the same chromosome.

During recombination, the precise breakage of each strand, exchange between the strands, and sealing of the resulting recombined molecules happens. The “chromosomal breakpoints” refers to these places where they break. Mostly, this process occurs with a high degree of accuracy at high frequency in both eukaryotic and prokaryotic cells. But occasionally this “break and sealing/ break and reattach” process goes wrong and the reattachment happens in the wrong place which usually create disaster (with few exceptions).These chromosome disaster or abnormalities involve the gain, loss or rearrangement of visible amounts of genetic material during cell division. These abnormalities are of two type, the first one is numerical abnormalities where severe disorders are caused by the loss or gain of whole chromosomes, which affect the copy number of hundreds or even thousands of genes. The second are structural abnormalities which can be unbalanced or balanced. The former are similar to numerical abnormalities in that genetic material is either gained or lost. The natural defects in chromosome segregation are linked to cancer and several genetic diseases (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_genetic_disorders). Therefore, the enzymes involved in regulating cell division are still the attractive drug targets for many diseases.

Apart from certain chromosome abnormalities, these “crossing over” of segments of maternal and paternal chromosomes to form hybrid chromosomes have some evolutionary importance and considered as a driver of genetic variation. Moreover, the chromosome breakage in evolution is considered to be non-random in nature(http://www.ploscompbiol.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pcbi.0020014). In addition the study of breakpoint regions and non-breakpoint (stable) regions of chromosomes indicates both the regions evolved in distinctly different ways ( http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2675965/). These breakage may lead to genetic diseases or participate to chromosomal rearranmgnets and contributed in development of new species.

I will try to explain the genome hotspots/Evolutionary Breakpoint Regions(EBRs)/fragile regions/weak fragments/ in my next blog.

Software for recombination detection:

RAT http://cbr.jic.ac.uk/dicks/software/RAT/

Breakpointer https://github.com/ruping/Breakpointer

DRP http://web.cbio.uct.ac.za/~darren/rdp.html

RB-finder http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18707535

LDhat2.0 http://ldhat.sourceforge.net/LDhat2.0/instructions.shtml

Reference:

http://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/genetic-recombination-514#

Image: Wikipedia , sciencelearn.org.nz

Recommended Articles:

http://www.friendshipcircle.org/blog/2012/05/22/13-chromosomal-disorders-youve-never-heard-of/

http://web.udl.es/usuaris/e4650869/docencia/segoncicle/genclin98/recursos_classe_%28pdf%29/revisionsPDF/chromosyndromes.pdf

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2775595/table/T2/

http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/disorders/chromosomal/

http://www.ncert.nic.in/html/learning_basket/biology/cc&cd.pdf

A 3D Map of the Human Genome

Fri, 12 Dec 2014 22:27:55 -0600

Suhas Rao and Miriam Huntley (of the Aiden Lab) describe a 3D map of the human genome at kilobase resolution, revealing the principles of chromatin looping. Guest Origami Folding: Sarah Nyquist. Suhas S.P. Rao*, Miriam H. Huntley*, Neva C. Durand, Elena K. Stamenova, Ivan D. Bochkov, James T. Robinson, Adrian L. Sanborn, Ido Machol, Arina D. Omer, Eric S. Lander, Erez Lieberman Aiden. (2014). A 3D Map of the Human Genome at Kilobase Resolution Reveals Principles of Chromatin Looping. Cell.

Google Genomics

Tenzin Paul — Thu, 18 Dec 2014 11:05:42 -0600

Explore genetic variation interactively. Compare entire cohorts in seconds with SQL-like queries. Compute transition/transversion ratios, genome-wide association, allelic frequency and more.
Process big genomic data easily. Run batch analyses like principal component analysis and Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium on as many samples as you like, in minutes or hours, with just a little code.
Use Google's infrastructure and big data expertise. Store one genome or a million using Google Genomics and take advantage of the same infrastructure that powers Search, Maps, YouTube, Gmail and Drive.
Support emerging global standards. Google Genomics is implementing the API defined by the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health for visualization, analysis and more. Compliant software can access Google Genomics, local servers, or any other implementation.

Address of the bookmark: https://cloud.google.com/genomics/

Sequencing By Xpansion

Jitendra Narayan — Wed, 17 Jun 2015 20:58:11 -0500

Sequencing By Xpansion (SBX) is a DNA sequencing method that uses a simple biochemical reaction to encode the sequence of a DNA molecule into a highly measurable surrogate called an Xpandomer. This single molecule approach produces enough Xpandomer in a single drop reaction to sequence an entire human genome 1000X over. To achieve this, an Xpandomer replaces each DNA sequence with a sequence of large, high signal reporter molecules using the SBX molecular expansion technology. The DNA sequence is then read out as the Xpandomer reporters pass sequentially through a nanopore detector. SBX is a molecular engineering platform that benefits from core design principles that separate the multiple molecular functions. This systems approach enables efficient development and incorporation of improvements to SBX and is key to reconfiguring and optimizing Xpandomer measurement for different detection platforms.

http://www.stratosgenomics.com/stratos-genomics-technology

Katju Lab

Fri, 26 Feb 2016 03:25:32 -0600

TheLab seek to understand the genetic factors contributing to genomic variation and phenotypic diversity. To this end, we employ molecular and bioinformatic tools to study evolutionary processes at the level of populations, both experimental and natural, and genomes. Our research interests encompass a wide range of topics, including the evolution of organellar and nuclear genomes, gene duplication and the origin of novel function, and the fitness and phenotypic consequences of mutation in evolution. For details regards ongoing projects, please see the Research page.

http://katjulab.com/research.html

Advanced Bash-Scripting Guide

Jit — Thu, 18 Feb 2016 04:50:51 -0600

This tutorial assumes no previous knowledge of scripting or programming, yet progresses rapidly toward an intermediate/advanced level of instruction . . . all the while sneaking in little nuggets of UNIX® wisdom and lore. It serves as a textbook, a manual for self-study, and as a reference and source of knowledge on shell scripting techniques. The exercises and heavily-commented examples invite active reader participation, under the premise that the only way to really learn scripting is to write scripts.

This book is suitable for classroom use as a general introduction to programming concepts.

More at http://tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/

Address of the bookmark: http://tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/

AccNET

Jitendra Narayan — Fri, 07 Oct 2016 05:22:11 -0500

AccNET is a Perl application that presents a new way to study the accessory genome of a given set of organisms. Using the proteomes of these organisms, AccNET create a bipartite network compatible with common network analysis platforms. AccNET collects phylogenetic and functional information in a network improving the analysis capability. Networks offer a new perspective of organism organization through elements acquired by horizontal gene transfers and not constricted by hierarchical structures.

More at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdGuy1GAJrQ

Address of the bookmark: https://sourceforge.net/projects/accnet/

Linux command line exercises for NGS data processing

Jit — Wed, 22 Jun 2016 07:59:39 -0500

The purpose of this tutorial is to introduce students to the frequently used tools for NGS analysis as well as giving experience in writing one-liners. Copy the required files to your current directory, change directory (cd) to the linuxTutorial folder, and do all the processing inside:

[uzi@quince-srv2 ~/]$ cp -r /home/opt/MScBioinformatics/linuxTutorial .
[uzi@quince-srv2 ~/]$ cd linuxTutorial
[uzi@quince-srv2 ~/linuxTutorial]$

I have deliberately chosen Awk in the exercises as it is a language in itself and is used more often to manipulate NGS data as compared to the other command line tools such as grep, sed, perl etc. Furthermore, having a command on awk will make it easier to understand advanced tutorials such as Illumina Amplicons Processing Workflow.

In Linux, we use a shell that is a program that takes your commands from the keyboard and gives them to the operating system. Most Linux systems utilize Bourne Again SHell (bash), but there are several additional shell programs on a typical Linux system such as ksh, tcsh, and zsh. To see which shell you are using, type

[uzi@quince-srv2 ~/linuxTutorial]$ echo $SHELL

/bin/bash

Address of the bookmark: http://userweb.eng.gla.ac.uk/umer.ijaz/bioinformatics/linux.html

Genome STRiP

Neel — Tue, 06 Sep 2016 03:58:19 -0500

Genome STRiP (Genome STRucture In Populations) is a suite of tools for discovering and genotyping structural variations using sequencing data. The methods are designed to detect shared variation using data from multiple individuals.

Genome STRiP looks both across and within a set of sequenced genomes to detect variation. The methods are adaptive and support heterogeneous data sets, including variations in sequencing depth, read lengths and mixtures of paired and single-end reads. A minimum of 20 to 30 genomes are required to get acceptable results, but the method gains power across genomes and processing more genomes provide better results.

To run discovery or genotyping on a single sequenced genome or a small set of genomes, you need to call your data against a background population, such as a set of genomes from the 1000 Genomes Project. The background population does not need to be matched to the target individuals.

Address of the bookmark: http://software.broadinstitute.org/software/genomestrip/

RepeatModeler

Jit — Thu, 18 Aug 2016 09:57:15 -0500

RepeatModeler is a de-novo repeat family identification and modeling package. At the heart of RepeatModeler are two de-novo repeat finding programs ( RECON and RepeatScout ) which employ complementary computational methods for identifying repeat element boundaries and family relationships from sequence data. RepeatModeler assists in automating the runs of RECON and RepeatScout given a genomic database and uses the output to build, refine and classify consensus models of putative interspersed repeats.

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