BOL: Related items

Surrogate Variable Analysis (SVA)

Jit — Thu, 30 Oct 2014 08:01:58 -0500

The sva package contains functions for removing batch effects and other unwanted variation in high-throughput experiment. Specifically, the sva package contains functions for the identifying and building surrogate variables for high-dimensional data sets. Surrogate variables are covariates constructed directly from high-dimensional data (like gene expression/RNA sequencing/methylation/brain imaging data) that can be used in subsequent analyses to adjust for unknown, unmodeled, or latent sources of noise. The sva package can be used to remove artifacts in three ways:

(1) identifying and estimating surrogate variables for unknown sources of variation in high-throughput experiments (Leek and Storey 2007 PLoS Genetics,2008 PNAS),

(2) directly removing known batch effects using ComBat (Johnson et al. 2007 Biostatistics) and

(3) removing batch effects with known control probes (Leek 2014 biorXiv).

Removing batch effects and using surrogate variables in differential expression analysis have been shown to reduce dependence, stabilize error rate estimates, and improve reproducibility, see (Leek and Storey 2007 PLoS Genetics, 2008 PNAS or Leek et al. 2011 Nat. Reviews Genetics).

More at http://www.bioconductor.org/packages/release/bioc/html/sva.html

Rcorrector: efficient and accurate error correction for Illumina RNA-seq reads

BioStar — Tue, 04 Feb 2020 23:23:16 -0600

Rcorrector has an accuracy higher than or comparable to existing methods, including the only other method (SEECER) designed for RNA-seq reads, and is more time and memory efficient. With a 5 GB memory footprint for 100 million reads, it can be run on virtually any desktop or server. The software is available free of charge under the GNU General Public License from https://github.com/mourisl/Rcorrector/.

Usage: perl run_rcorrector.pl [OPTIONS]
OPTIONS:
	Required
	-s seq_files: comma separated files for single-end data sets
	-1 seq_files_left: comma separated files for the first mate in the paried-end data sets
	-2 seq_files_right: comma separated files for the second mate in the paired-end data sets
	-i seq_files_interleaved: comma sperated files for interleaved paired-end data sets
	Optional
	-k INT: kmer_length (<=32, default: 23)
	-od STRING: output_file_directory (default: ./)
	-t INT: number of threads to use (default: 1)
	-trim : allow trimming (default: false)
	-maxcorK INT: the maximum number of correction within k-bp window (default: 4)
	-wk FLOAT: the proportion of kmers that are used to estimate weak kmer count threshold, lower for more divergent genome (default: 0.95)
	-ek INT: expected number of kmers; does not affect the correctness of program but affects the memory usage (default: 100000000)
	-stdout: output the corrected reads to stdout (default: not used)
	-verbose: output some correction information to stdout (default: not used)
	-stage INT: start from which stage (default: 0)
		0-start from begining(storing kmers in bloom filter) ;
		1-start from count kmers showed up in bloom filter;
		2-start from dumping kmer counts into a jf_dump file;
		3-start from error correction.

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/mourisl/Rcorrector/

Encode sequencing data freely available to download and use for academic means

Rahul Agarwal — Thu, 13 Mar 2014 18:18:08 -0500

In Encode, regulatory elements investigated via DNA hypersensitivity assays, assays of DNA methylation, and chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) of proteins that interact with DNA, including modified histones and transcription factors, followed by sequencing (ChIP-Seq).

More information:

https://genome.ucsc.edu/ENCODE/pilot.html

Address of the bookmark: https://genome.ucsc.edu/ENCODE/

Integrative RNA and ChIP-Seq analysis of regulatory T-cells

Strand — Tue, 04 Aug 2015 05:03:19 -0500

Integrative RNA and ChIP-Seq analysis of regulatory T-cells , a Strand NGS application note describes how integrated multi-omics functionality in Strand NGS was used to find the regulatory role of FoxP3 in T-regulatory and T-helper cells. Learn how the gene expression profiles from RNA-Seq and FoxP3 DNA-protein binding sites from ChIP-Seq are integrated. For mor information, please write to us

kallisto: a program for quantifying abundances of transcripts from bulk and single-cell RNA-Seq data

Jit — Mon, 07 Jan 2019 10:35:14 -0600

kallisto is a program for quantifying abundances of transcripts from bulk and single-cell RNA-Seq data, or more generally of target sequences using high-throughput sequencing reads. It is based on the novel idea of pseudoalignment for rapidly determining the compatibility of reads with targets, without the need for alignment. On benchmarks with standard RNA-Seq data, kallisto can quantify 30 million human reads in less than 3 minutes on a Mac desktop computer using only the read sequences and a transcriptome index that itself takes less than 10 minutes to build. Pseudoalignment of reads preserves the key information needed for quantification, and kallisto is therefore not only fast, but also as accurate as existing quantification tools. In fact, because the pseudoalignment procedure is robust to errors in the reads, in many benchmarks kallisto significantly outperforms existing tools. kallisto is described in detail in:

Nicolas L Bray, Harold Pimentel, Páll Melsted and Lior Pachter, Near-optimal probabilistic RNA-seq quantification, Nature Biotechnology 34, 525–527 (2016), doi:10.1038/nbt.3519

Address of the bookmark: https://pachterlab.github.io/kallisto/about

dupRadar package

Jit — Sun, 04 Feb 2018 14:28:57 -0600

The dupRadar package gives an insight into the duplication problem by graphically relating the gene expression level and the duplication rate present on it. Thus, failed experiments can be easily identified at a glance

Address of the bookmark: https://bioconductor.org/packages/3.7/bioc/vignettes/dupRadar/inst/doc/dupRadar.html

Meta-Transcriptomics: Dynamic World of RNA in Diverse Environments

Abhi — Wed, 31 Jul 2024 02:40:49 -0500

Meta-transcriptomics combines high-throughput sequencing technologies with computational biology to profile the RNA content of a sample. This technique allows researchers to capture a snapshot of gene expression and metabolic activities across diverse microbial communities, such as those found in soil, water, and the human gut.

Key Components

Sample Collection: Meta-transcriptomics begins with the collection of environmental samples. These samples are often complex, containing a wide range of microorganisms.
RNA Extraction: RNA is extracted from the sample, which includes mRNA, rRNA, tRNA, and other non-coding RNAs. This step is crucial as it determines the quality and representativeness of the data.
Sequencing: High-throughput RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) technologies are used to obtain sequences of the RNA transcripts. This step provides a vast amount of data on the RNA molecules present in the sample.
Data Analysis: Computational tools and bioinformatics methods are employed to process and analyze the sequencing data. This involves mapping RNA sequences to reference genomes or transcriptomes, identifying expressed genes, and quantifying their abundance.
Functional Annotation: The functional roles of identified transcripts are inferred based on known gene functions, allowing researchers to understand the metabolic and ecological functions of the microbial community.

Applications

Environmental Monitoring: Meta-transcriptomics can be used to monitor the health and functional status of ecosystems. For example, it can help assess the impact of pollution on microbial communities by revealing changes in gene expression related to stress response and degradation processes.
Microbiome Research: In human health, meta-transcriptomics offers insights into the gut microbiome’s functional state. It helps in understanding how microbial communities interact with their host, how they respond to dietary changes, and their role in health and disease.
Biotechnology: The technique can aid in the discovery of novel enzymes and bioactive compounds by profiling microbial communities in extreme environments or industrial processes.
Disease Pathogenesis: By analyzing RNA profiles from disease-associated environments, researchers can uncover pathogen-host interactions and identify potential targets for therapeutic interventions.

Challenges

Complexity of Data: The sheer volume and complexity of data generated by meta-transcriptomics can be overwhelming. Effective data management and advanced computational tools are required to extract meaningful insights.
Sampling Bias: Environmental samples can be heterogeneous, and RNA extraction methods may introduce biases, potentially affecting the accuracy of the results.
Reference Databases: Incomplete or biased reference databases can hinder the accurate functional annotation of transcripts, especially when studying novel or poorly characterized organisms.

Future Directions

Meta-transcriptomics is a rapidly evolving field, with ongoing advancements in sequencing technologies and bioinformatics. Future research may focus on improving data integration, developing more comprehensive reference databases, and enhancing our understanding of microbial community dynamics in various environments. As these challenges are addressed, meta-transcriptomics will continue to provide valuable insights into the functional roles of microorganisms and their interactions within ecosystems.

Conclusion

Meta-transcriptomics represents a powerful tool for exploring the functional aspects of microbial communities in their natural environments. By capturing a snapshot of gene expression and metabolic activities, this approach offers a deeper understanding of ecological interactions, health implications, and biotechnological potentials. As technology and methodologies advance, meta-transcriptomics is poised to make significant contributions to our knowledge of the microbial world.

Comparison of Short Read De Novo Alignment Algorithms

Rahul Agarwal — Wed, 21 Aug 2013 07:56:01 -0500

Excellent article to introduce different sequencing methods along with tools for de novo assembly of sequencing reads and their relevant references.

Title: Comparison of Short Read De Novo Alignment Algorithms

Author: Nikhil Gopal

Address of the bookmark: http://biochem218.stanford.edu/Projects%202011/Gopal%202011.pdf

coursera genome assembly tutorial

Jit — Sat, 25 Nov 2017 08:57:25 -0600

Solutions to Coursera Genome Sequencing (Bioinformatics II)

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/iansealy/coursera-assembly

COPE: an accurate k-mer-based pair-end reads connection tool to facilitate genome assembly

Jit — Wed, 06 Dec 2017 02:08:14 -0600

An efficient tool called Connecting Overlapped Pair-End (COPE) reads, to connect overlapping pair-end reads using k-mer frequencies. We evaluated our tool on 30× simulated pair-end reads from Arabidopsis thaliana with 1% base error. COPE connected over 99% of reads with 98.8% accuracy, which is, respectively, 10 and 2% higher than the recently published tool FLASH. When COPE is applied to real reads for genome assembly, the resulting contigs are found to have fewer errors and give a 14-fold improvement in the N50 measurement when compared with the contigs produced using unconnected reads.

Address of the bookmark: ftp://ftp.genomics.org.cn/pub/cope