BOL: Related items

Basics of BLAST Programs !

BioStar — Fri, 26 Jul 2024 06:04:26 -0500

The Basic Local Alignment Search Tool (BLAST) is a powerful bioinformatics program used to compare an input sequence (such as DNA, RNA, or protein sequences) against a database of sequences to find regions of similarity. Developed by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), BLAST is widely used for identifying species, finding functional and evolutionary relationships between sequences, and predicting the function of novel sequences.

Key Features of BLAST:
1. Sequence Comparison: BLAST searches for local alignments between the query sequence and sequences in a database. It identifies regions of similarity, which can help infer functional and evolutionary relationships.

2. Speed and Efficiency: BLAST uses heuristic algorithms, making it faster than exhaustive search methods, suitable for large-scale database searches.

3. Versatility: There are several versions of BLAST for different types of sequence comparisons:
- blastn: Compares a nucleotide query sequence against a nucleotide sequence database.
- blastp: Compares a protein query sequence against a protein sequence database.
- blastx: Compares a nucleotide query sequence translated in all reading frames against a protein sequence database.
- tblastn: Compares a protein query sequence against a nucleotide sequence database translated in all reading frames.
- tblastx: Compares the six-frame translations of a nucleotide query sequence against the six-frame translations of a nucleotide sequence database.

4. Scoring and E-value: BLAST results are scored based on the quality and length of the alignments. The E-value (expect value) indicates the number of alignments one can expect to find by chance, with lower E-values representing more significant matches.

5. Output Formats: BLAST provides results in various formats, including plain text, HTML, XML, and JSON, making it adaptable for different types of analyses and integrations with other tools.

Applications of BLAST:
- Genomic Research: Identifying genes, understanding genetic diversity, and mapping genome sequences.
- Protein Function Prediction: Inferring the function of unknown proteins by comparing them to known protein sequences.
- Evolutionary Studies: Exploring evolutionary relationships between organisms by comparing their genetic material.
- Medical Research: Identifying pathogens, understanding disease mechanisms, and developing treatments by comparing sequences of interest.

Overall, BLAST is an essential tool in bioinformatics, offering a reliable and efficient way to analyze and interpret biological sequence data.

Quota synteny alignment

Jit — Mon, 31 Jul 2017 04:11:57 -0500

Typically in comparative genomics, we can identify anchors, chain them into syntenic blocks and interpret these blocks as derived from a common descent. However, when comparing two genomes undergone ancient genome duplications (plant genomes in particular), we have large number of blocks that are not orthologous, but are paralogous. This has forced us sometimes to use ad-hoc rules to screen these blocks. So the question is: given the expected depth (quota) along both x- and y-axis, select a subset of the anchors with maximized total score.

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/tanghaibao/quota-alignment

assemblytics: delta file to analyze alignments of an assembly to another assembly or a reference genome

Jit — Thu, 14 Jun 2018 07:31:00 -0500

Download and install MUMmer Align your assembly to a reference genome using nucmer (from MUMmer package) $ nucmer -maxmatch -l 100 -c 500 REFERENCE.fa ASSEMBLY.fa -prefix OUT Consult the MUMmer manual if you encounter problems Optional: Gzip the delta file to speed up upload (usually 2-4X faster) $ gzip OUT.delta Then use the OUT.delta.gz file for upload. Upload the .delta or delta.gz file (view example) to Assemblytics Important: Use only contigs rather than scaffolds from the assembly. This will prevent false positives when the number of Ns in the scaffolded sequence does not match perfectly to the distance in the reference. The unique sequence length required represents an anchor for determining if a sequence is unique enough to safely call variants from, which is an alternative to the mapping quality filter for read alignment. http://assemblytics.com/

Address of the bookmark: http://assemblytics.com/

Qualimap2: Evaluating next generation sequencing alignment data

Jit — Tue, 11 Sep 2018 04:44:29 -0500

Qualimap 2 is a platform-independent application written in Java and R that provides both a Graphical User Inteface (GUI) and a command-line interface to facilitate the quality control of alignment sequencing data and its derivatives like feature counts.

Supported types of experiments include:

Whole-genome sequencing
Whole-exome sequencing
RNA-seq (speical mode available)
ChIP-seq

Address of the bookmark: http://qualimap.bioinfo.cipf.es/

The wavefront alignment (WFA) algorithm

BioStar — Sun, 28 Jun 2020 10:17:50 -0500

The wavefront alignment (WFA) algorithm is an exact gap-affine algorithm that takes advantage of
homologous regions between the sequences to accelerate the alignment process. As opposed to traditional dynamic programming algorithms that run in quadratic time, the WFA runs in time O(ns), proportional to the read length n and the alignment score s, using O(s^2) memory. Moreover, the WFA exhibits simple data dependencies that can be easily vectorized, even by the automatic features of modern compilers, for different architectures, without the need to adapt the code.

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/smarco/WFA

A web-based tool for sequence alignment statistics and innovative visualization

BioStar — Thu, 04 Apr 2024 01:44:50 -0500

AlignStatPlot, a new R package and online tool that is well-documented and easy-to usefor MSA and post-MSA analysis. This tool performs both traditional and cutting-edge analy-ses on sequencing data and generates new visualisation methods for MSA results. Whencompared to currently available tools, AlignStatPlot provides a robust ability to handle andvisualise diversity data, while the online version will save time and encourage researchersto focus on explaining their findings. It is a simple tool that can be used in conjunction withpopulation genetics software (PDF) AlignStatPlot: An R package and online tool for robust sequence alignment statistics and innovative visualization of big data.

Address of the bookmark: https://bioinformatics.um6p.ma/AlignStatPlot/

Alvis: a tool for contig and read ALignment VISualisation and chimera detection

LEGE — Wed, 08 May 2024 07:02:55 -0500

Alvis, a simple command line tool that can generate visualisations for a number of common alignment analysis tasks. Alvis is a fast and portable tool that accepts input in a variety of alignment formats and will output production ready vector images. Additionally, Alvis will highlight potentially chimeric reads or contigs, a common source of misassemblies.

More at https://bmcbioinformatics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12859-021-04056-0

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/SR-Martin/alvis

DAGchainer: Computing Chains of Syntenic Genes in Complete Genomes

Abhimanyu Singh — Fri, 17 Feb 2017 16:13:35 -0600

The DAGchainer software computes chains of syntenic genes found within complete genome sequences. As input, DAGchainer accepts a list of gene pairs with sequence homology along with their genome coordinates. Using a scoring function which accounts for the distance between neighboring genes on each DNA molecule and the BLAST E-value score between homologs, maximally scoring chains of ordered gene pairs are computed and reported. This algorithm can be used to mine large evolutionary conserved regions of genomes between two organisms. Alternatively, by examining colinear sets of homologous genes found within a single genome, segmental genome duplications can be revealed.

This software distribution includes both the DAGchainer utility and a Java-based graphical interface that allows the inputs and outputs to be navigated and interrogated dynamically.

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

GOLD:Genomes Online Database

Jit — Wed, 26 Jul 2017 07:49:29 -0500

GOLD:Genomes Online Database, is a World Wide Web resource for comprehensive access to information regarding genome and metagenome sequencing projects, and their associated metadata, around the world.

https://gold.jgi.doe.gov/

Address of the bookmark: https://gold.jgi.doe.gov/

Understanding liftOver !

Rahul Nayak — Wed, 06 Jun 2018 10:00:20 -0500

LiftOver is a necesary step to bring all genetical analysis to the same reference build. LiftOver can have three use cases:

(1) Convert genome position from one genome assembly to another genome assembly

In most scenarios, we have known genome positions in NCBI build 36 (UCSC hg 18) and hope to lift them over to NCBI build 37 (UCSC hg19).

(2) Convert dbSNP rs number from one build to another

(3) Convert both genome position and dbSNP rs number over different versions

Run:

liftOver input.bed hg18ToHg19.over.chain.gz output.bed unlifted.bed

The outformat is as follow:

Deleted in new:
    Sequence intersects no chains
Partially deleted in new:
    Sequence insufficiently intersects one chain
Split in new:
    Sequence insufficiently intersects multiple chains
Duplicated in new:
    Sequence sufficiently intersects multiple chains
Boundary problem:
    Missing start or end base in an exon

For example:

If you liftOver chr4:6497-6497 from hg19 to GRch38 and it return "deleted in new".

It means chr4:6497-6497 is part of a genomic contig on hg19 that is not anymore mapped on GRch38 because the new assembly is now better built without including this contig.