BOL: Related items

Genome Context Viewer (GCV)

LEGE — Sun, 21 May 2023 19:33:43 -0500

The Genome Context Viewer (GCV) is a web-app that visualizes genomic context data provided by third party services. Specifically, it uses functional annotations as a unit of search and comparison. By adopting a common set of annotations, data-store operators can deploy federated instances of GCV, allowing users to compare genomes from different providers in a single interface.

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/legumeinfo/gcv

Tools to access the quality of your assembled genome !

LEGE — Thu, 08 Aug 2024 23:31:18 -0500

FASTA VALIDATOR + SEQKIT RMDUP: FASTA validation
GENOMETOOLS GT GFF3VALIDATOR: GFF3 validation
ASSEMBLATHON STATS: Assembly statistics
GENOMETOOLS GT STAT: Annotation statistics
NCBI FCS ADAPTOR: Adaptor contamination pass/fail
NCBI FCS GX: Foreign organism contamination pass/fail
BUSCO: Gene-space completeness estimation
TIDK: Telomere repeat identification
LAI: Continuity of repetitive sequences
KRAKEN2: Taxonomy classification
HIC CONTACT MAP: Alignment and visualisation of HiC data
MUMMER → CIRCOS + DOTPLOT & MINIMAP2 → PLOTSR: Synteny analysis
MERQURY: K-mer completeness, consensus quality and phasing assessment

Early Genome Screening: The New Health Horoscope!

LEGE — Thu, 02 Jan 2025 19:44:36 -0600

In an era where precision medicine is reshaping healthcare, genome screening is emerging as the modern equivalent of a health horoscope. It offers insights into our biological "stars," unraveling predispositions to various conditions and empowering individuals with knowledge to navigate their health journeys proactively. But how reliable is this "horoscope," and how does it impact our lives?

Understanding Genome Screening

Genome screening involves analyzing an individual's DNA to identify genetic variations that may influence health and disease susceptibility. This can range from simple single-gene tests to comprehensive whole-genome sequencing. By peering into our genetic blueprint, we can uncover risks for conditions like cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and even rare genetic disorders.

The process is straightforward: a saliva or blood sample is collected, and advanced sequencing technologies decipher the genetic code. The results provide a personalized health map, guiding lifestyle modifications, preventive measures, or medical interventions.

A Shift from Reactive to Proactive Healthcare

Traditional healthcare often focuses on treating diseases after they manifest. Genome screening flips this model on its head, enabling a shift toward prevention and early intervention. For instance:

Cancer Risk Management: Individuals with BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene mutations can opt for enhanced screening programs or preventive surgeries to mitigate their risk of breast and ovarian cancers.
Cardiovascular Health: Genetic predispositions to conditions like familial hypercholesterolemia can prompt early cholesterol monitoring and lifestyle adjustments.
Rare Diseases: Identifying carriers of genetic disorders can aid in family planning and reduce the incidence of inherited conditions.

The Ethical and Practical Concerns

While genome screening offers incredible promise, it is not without challenges:

Accuracy and Interpretation: Genetic predisposition does not guarantee disease. Misinterpretation of results can lead to unnecessary anxiety or unwarranted medical interventions.
Privacy and Data Security: Genetic data is highly sensitive. Ensuring robust data protection measures is crucial to prevent misuse.
Accessibility and Equity: High costs and limited availability may restrict access to genome screening, exacerbating health disparities.

Balancing Science and Pseudoscience

The comparison of genome screening to horoscopes isn’t entirely unfounded. Both offer predictive insights, but the scientific foundation of genome screening distinguishes it from astrology. Unlike the alignment of celestial bodies, genetic predictions are based on rigorous data and evidence. However, the probabilistic nature of genetic predispositions underscores the importance of interpreting results in conjunction with clinical and lifestyle factors.

The Road Ahead

As genome screening becomes more affordable and integrated into routine healthcare, its potential to transform lives is immense. Policymakers, healthcare providers, and genetic counselors must collaborate to ensure ethical implementation, public awareness, and equitable access.

Imagine a future where your genetic "horoscope" is a trusted guide, not just a prediction. Early genome screening could help chart a healthier path for generations, making it a cornerstone of personalized medicine. After all, our genes might just hold the key to unlocking a future of better health and well-being.

NGMLR: long-read mapper designed to align PacBio or Oxford Nanopore

Jit — Wed, 25 Apr 2018 07:30:54 -0500

CoNvex Gap-cost alignMents for Long Reads (ngmlr) is a long-read mapper designed to sensitively align PacBilo or Oxford Nanopore to (large) reference genomes. It was designed to quickly and correctly align the reads, including those spanning (complex) structural variations. Ngmlr uses an SV aware k-mer search to find approximate mapping locations for a read and then a banded Smith-Waterman alignment algorithm to compute the final alignment. Ngmlr uses a convex gap cost model that penalizes gap extensions for longer gaps less than for shorter ones to compute precise alignments. The gap model allows ngmlr to account for both the sequencing error and real genomic variations at the same time and makes it especially effective at more precisely identifying the position of breakpoints stemming from structural variations. The k-mer search helps to detect and split reads that cannot be aligned linearly, enabling ngmlr to reliably align reads to a wide range of different structural variations including nested SVs (e.g. inversions flanked by deletions).

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/philres/ngmlr

NanoPack: visualizing and processing long-read sequencing data

Jit — Tue, 25 Dec 2018 21:20:50 -0600

The NanoPack tools are written in Python3 and released under the GNU GPL3.0 License. The source code can be found at https://github.com/wdecoster/nanopack, together with links to separate scripts and their documentation. The scripts are compatible with Linux, Mac OS and the MS Windows 10 subsystem for Linux and are available as a graphical user interface, a web service at http://nanoplot.bioinf.be and command line tools.

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/wdecoster/nanopack

Radka Reifová Lab

Mon, 15 Feb 2016 06:00:48 -0600

We are generally interested in the mechanisms of species origin from a molecular and ecological perspective. Particularly, we are interested in the role of sex chromosomes in speciation. Most of our research is done on birds and mammals. Currently, we focus our research on two hybridizing song birds, the Common nightingale (Luscinia megarhynchos) and the Thrush Nightingale (L. luscinia). Combining population genomic and ecological approaches we try to elucidate the genetic architecture of reproductive isolation and understand the role of interspecific competition and song convergence in the evolution of reproductive isolation between the species.

More at http://web.natur.cuni.cz/~radkas/index.php?page=research

Kaiju

Jit — Mon, 27 Jun 2016 11:23:04 -0500

Kaiju is a program for the taxonomic classification of metagenomic high-throughput sequencing reads. Each read is directly assigned to a taxon within the NCBI taxonomy by comparing it to a reference database containing microbial and viral protein sequences.

By default, Kaiju uses either the available complete genomes from NCBI RefSeq or the microbial subset of the non-redundant protein database nr used by NCBI BLAST, optionally also including fungi and microbial eukaryotes.

Kaiju translates reads into amino acid sequences, which are then searched in the database using a modified backward search on a memory-efficient implementation of the Burrows-Wheeler transform, which finds maximum exact matches (MEMs), optionally allowing mismatches in the protein alignment. The search can process up to millions of reads per minute using, for example, only 10 GB RAM with a protein database comprising 4821 microbial genomes. Kaiju can also be used for querying any other protein database without taxonomic classification, using either protein or nucleotide queries.

Kaiju is described in Menzel, P. et al. (2016) Fast and sensitive taxonomic classification for metagenomics with Kaiju. Nat. Commun. 7:11257 (open access).

Address of the bookmark: http://kaiju.binf.ku.dk/

STELLAR: fast and exact local alignments

Neel — Wed, 29 Aug 2018 16:00:46 -0500

STELLAR is very practical and fast on very long sequences which makes it a suitable new tool for finding local alignments between genomic sequences under the edit distance model. Binaries are freely available for Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X at http://www.seqan.de/projects/stellar.

Address of the bookmark: http://www.seqan.de/apps/stellar/

npScarf: Scaffolding and Completing Assemblies in Real-time Fashion

Jit — Tue, 23 May 2017 04:53:29 -0500

npScarf (jsa.np.npscarf) is a program that scaffolds and completes draft genomes assemblies in real-time with Oxford Nanopore sequencing. The pipeline can run on a computing cluster as well as on a laptop computer for microbial datasets. It also facilitates the real-time analysis of positional information such as gene ordering and the detection of genes from mobile elements (plasmids and genomic islands).

Complete paper at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5321748/

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/mdcao/npScarf

WAAFLE: a Workflow to Annotate Assemblies and Find LGT Events.

Neel — Thu, 23 Sep 2021 14:31:06 -0500

Lateral gene transfer (LGT) is an important mechanism for genome diversification in microbial communities, including the human microbiome. While methods exist to identify LGTs from sequenced isolate genomes, identifying LGTs from community metagenomes remains an open problem. To address this, we developed WAAFLE: a Workflow to Annotate Assemblies and Find LGT Events.

Address of the bookmark: http://huttenhower.sph.harvard.edu/waafle