BOL: Related items

UnCoVar: Workflow for Transparent and Robust Virus Variant Calling, Genome Reconstruction and Lineage Assignment

BioStar — Mon, 05 Aug 2024 23:01:29 -0500

UnCoVar: Workflow for Transparent and Robust Virus Variant Calling, Genome Reconstruction and Lineage Assignment

Using state of the art tools, easily extended for other viruses
Tool and database updates for critical components via Conda
Built using modern design patterns with Conda and Snakemake
Extensible and easy to customize
Submission Ready Genomes
Customizable reporting with comprehensive visualization

https://ikim-essen.github.io/uncovar/

Github https://github.com/IKIM-Essen/uncovar

Address of the bookmark: https://ikim-essen.github.io/uncovar/

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.

HiTE: a fast and accurate dynamic boundary adjustment approach for full-length Transposable Elements detection and annotation in Genome Assemblies

LEGE — Sat, 20 Sep 2025 09:34:04 -0500

HiTE is a Python software that uses a dynamic boundary adjustment approach to detect and annotate full-length Transposable Elements in Genome Assemblies. In comparison to other tools, HiTE demonstrates superior performance in detecting a greater number of full-length TEs.

panHiTE

We have developed panHiTE, a comprehensive and accurate pipeline for TE detection in large-scale population genomes. It has been successfully applied to hundreds of plant population genomes, demonstrating its effectiveness and scalability.

For detailed instructions, please refer to the panHiTE tutorial.

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/CSU-KangHu/HiTE

D3 javascript for visualization !

Jit — Mon, 23 Apr 2018 08:42:22 -0500

Welcome to the D3 gallery! More examples are available on bl.ocks.org/mbostock. If you want to share an example and don't have your own hosting, consider using Gist and bl.ocks.org. If you want to share or view live examples try vida.io.

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/d3/d3/wiki/Gallery

The Home Microbiome Project

Tue, 02 Sep 2014 15:21:49 -0500

The Home Microbiome Project is an initiative aimed at uncovering the dynamic co-associations between people's bacteria and the bacteria found in their homes.The hope is that the data and project will show that routine monitoring of the microbial diversity of your body and of the environment in which you live is possible. Computer animation courtesy the Biology & Built Environment (BioBE) Center, University of Oregon and Cameron Slayden at Cosmocyte. http://vimeo.com/90059732 BioBE on Vimeo: http://vimeo.com/user22991553

Mercator: Multiple Whole-Genome Orthology Map Construction

Jit — Tue, 19 May 2020 16:46:22 -0500

Whole-genome homology maps attempt to identify the evolutionary relationships between and within multiple genomes. The term "syntenic" is often used to describe regions of multiple genomes that are believed to have evolved from the same region in an ancestral genome. However, it has been pointed out that this use of the term is incorrect (Passarge et al. 1999) and thus we will use the terms "homologous", "orthologous", and "paralogous" instead. Ideally, given K genomes, we would like to identify all orthologous genomic regions as well as paralogous regions within each genome and hypothetical ancestral genome. Maps listing these relationships are extremely valuable to researchers performing comparative analyses of genomic sequence. Here we present our initial work in the form a program called Mercator that constructs orthology maps between multiple whole genomes.

Address of the bookmark: https://www.biostat.wisc.edu/~cdewey/mercator/

shovill: Assemble bacterial isolate genomes from Illumina paired-end reads

BioStar — Sat, 02 Jan 2021 07:05:36 -0600

Shovill is a pipeline which uses SPAdes at its core, but alters the steps before and after the primary assembly step to get similar results in less time. Shovill also supports other assemblers like SKESA, Velvet and Megahit, so you can take advantage of the pre- and post-processing the Shovill provides with those too.

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/tseemann/shovill

MashMap: a fast and approximate software for mapping long reads (PacBio/ONT) or assembly to reference genome(s)

Jit — Tue, 12 Dec 2017 17:23:31 -0600

MashMap is a fast and approximate software for mapping long reads (PacBio/ONT) or assembly to reference genome(s). It maps a query sequence against a reference region if and only if its estimated alignment identity is above a specified threshold. It does not compute the alignments explicitly, but rather estimates a k-mer based Jaccard similarity using a combination of Winnowing and MinHash. This is then converted to an estimate of sequence identity using the Mash distance. An appropriate k-mer sampling rate is automatically determined given minimum local alignment length and identity thresholds. The efficiency of the algorithm improves as both of these thresholds are increased.

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/marbl/MashMap

Flye: Fast and accurate de novo assembler for single molecule sequencing reads

Jit — Fri, 04 May 2018 19:16:22 -0500

Flye is a de novo assembler for long and noisy reads, such as those produced by PacBio and Oxford Nanopore Technologies. The algorithm uses an A-Bruijn graph to find the overlaps between reads and does not require them to be error-corrected. After the initial assembly, Flye performs an extra repeat classification and analysis step to improve the structural accuracy of the resulting sequence. The package also includes a polisher module, which produces the final assembly of high nucleotide-level quality.

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/fenderglass/Flye

BlasR Mapping single molecule sequencing reads using Basic Local Alignment with Successive Refinement (BLASR): Theory and Application,

Jit — Wed, 23 May 2018 06:54:32 -0500

BLASR (Basic Local Alignment with Successive Refinement) for mapping Single Molecule Sequencing (SMS) reads that are thousands to tens of thousands of bases long with divergence between the read and genome dominated by insertion and deletion error.

Here is how I use the blasr to align PacBio reads to the contigs (target.fasta). The “target.fasta.sa” is the suffix array from “target.fasta” generated by sawriter.

blasr query.fa ./target.fasta -sa ./target.fasta.sa -bestn 40 -maxScore -500 -m 4 -nproc 24 -out target.m4 -maxLCPLength 15

the output format option “-m 4″ generate the alignment coordinate. Not fully documented, but I can explain that to you.

I use a 24 cores / 48G ram server for the alignment. It took about 2 to 3 hours aligning 3G PacBio Reads to 10^6 sequences of short read contigs with a mean 3.5kbp length.

Address of the bookmark: http://bix.ucsd.edu/projects/blasr/