BOL: Related items

Salzberg lab

Mon, 15 May 2017 05:14:01 -0500

We are a computational biology lab that develops novel methods for analysis of DNA and RNA sequences. Our research includes software for aligning and assembling RNA-seq data, whole-genome assembly, and microbiome analysis. We work closely with biomedical scientists to apply these methods to current problems arising in a broad spectrum of biological and medical research areas. We’re also part of the Center for Computational Biology, a group of 20+ faculty members and their labs at Johns Hopkins working on computational, statistical, and mathematical methods that can turn massive genomic data sets into biologically and clinically useful information.

https://salzberg-lab.org/

Jvarkit : Java utilities for Bioinformatics

Jit — Fri, 08 Jun 2018 09:31:55 -0500

Collection of Java tool kits for bioinformatics works: Jvarkit : Java utilities for Bioinformatics

Address of the bookmark: http://lindenb.github.io/jvarkit/

Genobuntu: A software package containing more than 70 software and packages oriented towards NGS and genome assembly

BioStar — Tue, 11 Dec 2018 05:15:57 -0600

Genobuntu is a software package containing more than 70 software and packages oriented towards NGS. In its current version, Genobuntu supports pre assembly tools, genome assemblers as well as post assembly tools.

Commonly used biological software and example script files for different assembly pipelines have also been provided, where the example script files can be updated to suit one’s experimental needs. Genobuntu attempts to reduce the amount of time and energy needed to build software workstations and it can also act as a good teaching source for a class room setting.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/genobuntu/

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

List of bioinformatics workflow management tools !

Rahul Nayak — Sat, 20 Mar 2021 00:15:25 -0500

Here are list of Workflow Managers

BigDataScript – A cross-system scripting language for working with big data pipelines in computer systems of different sizes and capabilities. [ paper-2014 | web ]
Bpipe – A small language for defining pipeline stages and linking them together to make pipelines. [ web ]
Common Workflow Language – a specification for describing analysis workflows and tools that are portable and scalable across a variety of software and hardware environments, from workstations to cluster, cloud, and high performance computing (HPC) environments. [ web ]
Cromwell – A Workflow Management System geared towards scientific workflows. [ web ]
Galaxy – a popular open-source, web-based platform for data intensive biomedical research. Has several features, from data analysis to workflow management to visualization tools. [ paper-2018 | web ]
Nextflow (recommended) – A fluent DSL modelled around the UNIX pipe concept, that simplifies writing parallel and scalable pipelines in a portable manner. [ paper-2018 | web ]
Ruffus – Computation Pipeline library for python widely used in science and bioinformatics. [ paper-2010 | web ]
SeqWare – Hadoop Oozie-based workflow system focused on genomics data analysis in cloud environments. [ paper-2010 | web ]
Snakemake – A workflow management system in Python that aims to reduce the complexity of creating workflows by providing a fast and comfortable execution environment. [ paper-2018 | web ]
Workflow Descriptor Language – Workflow standard developed by the Broad. [ web ]

Shasta long read assembler

Jit — Tue, 14 Jan 2020 06:47:07 -0600

The goal of the Shasta long read assembler is to rapidly produce accurate assembled sequence using as input DNA reads generated by Oxford Nanopore flow cells.

Computational methods used by the Shasta assembler include:

Using a run-length representation of the read sequence. This makes the assembly process more resilient to errors in homopolymer repeat counts, which are the most common type of errors in Oxford Nanopore reads.
Using in some phases of the computation a representation of the read sequence based on markers, a fixed subset of short k-mers (k ≈ 10).

More at https://chanzuckerberg.github.io/shasta/index.html

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/chanzuckerberg/shasta

Five points for bioinformatics software/tools

Jitendra Narayan — Mon, 05 Aug 2013 04:12:32 -0500

In the bioinformatics sector we mostly spend time on computational analysis of huge amounts of data and try to make sense of it, biologically. But, most of the newbie bioinformaticians are faced with dilemma when they receive biological sequence data for the first time. They mostly found confusing over open source, user friendly GUI, and commercial bioinformatics software. Don’t be surprise this is true and also not an easy task to decide, because analytical step is the most crucial part and believe to be the biggest bottleneck in publishing paper in high impact journals. Through this blog I would like to address the pros and cons of both kind of software/tools and try to assist (Hmmm not really, It looks convince) you to make decision on your software selections.

The most common newbie questions are:

Should I try to use these free open source programs? Why are we not trying GUI software for computational analysis? Should I use commercial bioinformatics programs/software?”

1. Let’s be open

We generally think free and cheap are useless. But this concept is not applicable when we discuss open source software. Mostly, the bioinformatics software is developed by highly competitive biological programmers who believe in open sharing of knowledge. They come under Open Bioinformatics Foundation or O|B|F which is a non-profit, volunteer run organization focused on supporting open source programming in bioinformatics. The best part about open source tools/software is that they’re free to download the source code and read exactly what the program does. If you are so inclined, you can view all of the parts of the program and see the logical flow of the pipeline. In addition, open source makes an excellent learning tool for any beginning bioinformatician. Moreover, you can modify existing open source programs to deal with cutting-edge problems or to customize your pipeline. Apart from your computational and analysis work, most of the reviewer also prefers the open source based results so that they can validate the results if validation required.

2. Code headache

As a bioinformatician you are supposed to know the basics of programming languages, and if you are not good at it, then please learn it as soon as possible because you are not a bio-analyst but biological programmers. The open source programs usually lack dedicated service and support teams (often because they were the product of an overworked doc/postdoc!) so you are responsible for troubleshooting your own errors most of the time. We commonly receive the HELP email to support and assist to setup the pipeline; you can also find this kind of request on any QA forum. I personally believe this coding horror brings the biggest downside of open-source programs; where you need some programming skills in order to implement the program in your pipeline. But, if you are not able to fix the pipeline and modify the open source code according to your requirements them you should re-think on your bioinformatician name tag!!!

3. Dive into the codes

Some of the biologist turn bioinformatician says “if you can do the same thing with commercial software then why to get migraine with weird codes”, well this statement looks to me that guys are keen to learn swimming but still don’t like to get wet. If you are still using paid software and doing your work by customer support and clicking some of the well-designed GUI button then perhaps you are not interested in learning and trying new and challenging bioinformatics works. You are missing the basic flavour of bioinformatics. Let’s dive into the coding world, I am sure your will enjoy it. I recommend your to swim freely in code’s sea, and enjoy the journey; do not merely watch it from the outside.

4. Paid does not mean better

The bioinformatics company which are specializes in bioinformatics solutions develop well designed/packed, user friendly software by using a large number of specialised scientist, programmers and support staff. They also provide good services to accomplice your biological analysis work. This means that if you hit a ‘snag’ with your data, help is likely only a phone call away! These companies price their products competitively against the cost of a dedicated bioinformatician. You may be able to afford the program, but not the additional staff! Additionally, most of the functionality that you need in your analysis is already coded into the program. Need to plot a graph? Just click this button right here. It is that easy. But, as a bioinformatician this is not generally well encouraged approach in biological analysis work, because the software is not available to everyone and your data can’t be validated. Moreover, there is very less chances that anyone will repeat your work or love to do similar kind of research (because not all the labs in the world are rich like yours).

5. Take a caution

In biological analysis work, in which you deal GB/TB of data are having maximum chances of getting errors, so please be careful and always cross check your data before coming to any conclusion. Even an error in two line code can alter your entire analysis and display weird results. Some of the scientist blindly believes on commercial software, which is entirely wrong. Using proprietary tools does not absolve you of the need to actually read and research the type of analysis that you are doing. This is particularly true in the case of genome assembly and annotation.

At the end, I would like to tell only one think that open source solutions allows you to do more cutting edge analysis than the commercial tools. So let’s go for it.

Disclaimer:

This is my personal view. I have nothing to do with any company or open source community. The views expressed on these pages are mine alone and not those of my current/past employers. I do reserve the right to remove comments left by spammers or off-topic comments.

Tools for Protein-Protein Docking !

Poonam Mahapatra — Wed, 25 Apr 2018 05:15:53 -0500

Predicting the structure of protein–protein complexes using docking approaches is a difficult problem whose major challenges include identifying correct solutions, and properly dealing with molecular flexibility and conformational changes. Following are the tools to predict the structure of protein–protein complexes:

3D-Dock Suite

Global rigid search: FFTShape complementarity and electrostatics

Re-scoring and clustering. Refinement of interface side-chains

3D-Garden

Global rigid search in ensamble

Shape complementarity and Lennard–Jones potential

Side chain and backbone dihedral refinement

DOT

Global rigid search: FFTShape complementarity, electrostatics and VDWNone

Escher NG

Global rigid searchShape complementarity, hydrogen bonds and electrostatic

Integrated in VEGA

GRAMM

Global rigid search: FFT. smooth protein surface representation for soft docking

Shape complementarity and Lennard-Jones potential

Clustering of conformations

GRAMM-X

Global rigid search: FFT. smooth protein surface representation for soft docking

Shape complementarity and Lennard-Jones potentialminimization and re-scoring with multiple filters

HEX

Global rigid search: Fourier correlation of spherical harmonics

Shape complementarity

HADDOCK

Global rigid searchElectrostatic ,VDW and desolvation energy termsMD simulated annealing refinement . Filtering based on external data.

ICM

Global rigid search: Monte CarloEmpirical scoring function

Clustering and selection of conformations. Refinement of interface side-chains and re-scoring

MolFit

Global rigid search: FFTShape complementarity

Clustering of good solutions, filtering using a priori information and small, local rigid rotations around selected conformations

PatchDock

Global rigid searchShape complementarity and atomic desolvation energy

Clustering of conformations

PyDock

Global rigid search:FFTShape complementarity

rescoring by binding electrostatics and desolvation energy

RosettaDock

Local rigid search: Monte Carlo with low and high resolution structure representation levels

Different scoring parameters for the different resolutions

ZDOCK

Global rigid search: FFTShape complementarity, desolvation energy, and electrostatics.

Energy minimization and re-scoringFree for academics

Point to note:

The proper treatment of flexibility in protein–protein docking is still an active field of research. You first should analyzed your proteins in order to define their conformational space and then choose the most suitable method for your docking problem.

deepTools

Martin Jones — Sat, 08 Nov 2014 15:02:08 -0600

deepTools addresses the challenge of handling the large amounts of data that are now routinely generated from DNA sequencing centers. To do so, deepTools contains useful modules to process the mapped reads data to create coverage files in standard bedGraph and bigWig file formats. By doing so, deepTools allows the creation of normalized coverage files or the comparison between two files (for example, treatment and control). Finally, using such normalized and standardized files, multiple visualizations can be created to identify enrichments with functional annotations of the genome.

Publicaton: http://nar.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2014/05/05/nar.gku365.full

Source Code and Wiki: https://github.com/fidelram/deepTools/wiki

Galaxy Tool Shed repository: http://toolshed.g2.bx.psu.edu/view/bgruening/deeptools

and example Galaxy workflows: http://toolshed.g2.bx.psu.edu/view/bgruening/deeptools_workflows

CANU: Assembling Large Genomes with Single-Molecule Sequencing and Locality Sensitive Hashing.

Jit — Tue, 26 Apr 2016 11:38:10 -0500

Canu is a fork of the Celera Assembler designed for high-noise single-molecule sequencing (such as the PacBio RSII or Oxford Nanopore MinION). The software is currently alpha level, feel free to use and report issues encountered.

Canu is a hierachical assembly pipeline which runs in four steps:

Detect overlaps in high-noise sequences using MHAP
Generate corrected sequence consensus
Trim corrected sequences
Assemble trimmed corrected sequences

Read the documentation

New release https://github.com/marbl/canu/releases

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

GATB : Genome Analysis Toolbox with de-Bruijn graph

Jit — Thu, 28 Apr 2016 11:16:51 -0500

The Genome Analysis Toolbox with de-Bruijn graph (GATB) provides a set of highly efficient algorithms to analyse NGS data sets. These methods enable the analysis of data sets of any size on multi-core desktop computers, including very huge amount of reads data coming from any kind of organisms such as bacteria, plants, animals and even complex samples (e.g. metagenomes).

More at https://gatb.inria.fr/

Address of the bookmark: https://gatb.inria.fr/