BOL: Related items

From DNA Chaos to a Clear Microbial Story

BioStar — Fri, 21 Aug 2026 11:22:54 -0500

Imagine opening a metagenomic dataset and finding millions of DNA fragments, each carrying a tiny piece of information about the microbial world inside a sample. The challenge is not generating the data — it is turning that data into a meaningful story.

This is where MeTAline comes in.

MeTAline is a reproducible workflow designed to simplify shotgun metagenomic analysis. It brings together important steps such as quality control, host-DNA removal, taxonomic profiling and functional analysis, using tools including Kraken2, MetaPhlAn4 and HUMAnN.

What makes it especially useful is its ability to handle large datasets while keeping analyses organized and reproducible. Built with Snakemake and supporting containerized environments, MeTAline can also be used on high-performance computing systems.

In simple terms, MeTAline helps researchers move from millions of confusing DNA fragments to a clearer picture of who is there, what they might be doing, and what the data could mean.

Sometimes, the biggest challenge in science isn't collecting more data — it's finding the story hidden inside it.

Read more at https://academic.oup.com/nargab/article/7/4/lqaf158/8340158?login=false

DAVI: Deep learning-based tool for alignment and single nucleotide variant identification

Jit — Tue, 16 Mar 2021 05:41:33 -0500

DAVI consists of models for both global and local alignment and for variant calling. We have evaluated the performance of DAVI against existing state-of-the-art tool sets and found that its accuracy and performance is comparable to existing tools used for bench-marking. We further demonstrate that while existing tools are based on data generated from a specific sequencing technology, the models proposed in DAVI are generic and can be used across different NGS technologies as well as across different species

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/2632-2153/ab7e19/pdf

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/gguptaiitd/NEAT

Circleator

Jit — Sun, 25 Jun 2017 18:04:32 -0500

The Charm City Circleator--or Circleator for short--is a Perl-based visualization tool developed at the Institute for Genome Sciences in the University of Maryland's School of Medicine. Circleator produces circular plots of genome-associated data, like this one:

Common uses of the tool include:

Displaying the sequence and/or genes in a GenBank flat file.
Highlighting differences and/or similarities in gene content between related organisms.
Comparing SNPs and indels between closely-related strains or serovars.
Comparing gene expression values across multiple samples or timepoints.
Visualizing coverage plots of RNA-Seq read alignments.

Key Features

Circleator...

Builds on BioPerl and the input file formats that it supports, including:
- GenBank flat files, GFF, FASTA
Accepts a number of other commonly-used datatypes and file formats:
- BSR and TRF output, SAM/BAM files, VCF-encoded SNPs, tab-delimited files
Outputs publication-ready figures in the SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) format.
Requires only a single configuration file whose layout mirrors that of the figure itself.
- Predefined configuration files and "track" types are supplied for common datasets.
- Advanced features allow limited analyses to be performed as a figure is drawn.
Includes an extensive set of regression tests.
Offers a prototype web-based GUI (under the "Ringmaster" project.)

https://github.com/jonathancrabtree/Circleator

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/jonathancrabtree/Circleator

CHSMiner: a GUI tool to identify chromosomal homologous segments

Jit — Sat, 18 Nov 2017 16:55:49 -0600

Background

The identification of chromosomal homologous segments (CHS) within and between genomes is essential for comparative genomics. Various processes including insertion/deletion and inversion could cause the degeneration of CHSs.

Results

Here we present a Java software CHSMiner that detects CHSs based on shared gene content alone. It implements fast greedy search algorithm and rigorous statistical validation, and its friendly graphical interface allows interactive visualization of the results. We tested the software on both simulated and biological realistic data and compared its performance with similar existing software and data source.

Conclusion

CHSMiner is characterized by its integrated workflow, fast speed and convenient usage. It will be useful for both experimentalists and bioinformaticians interested in the structure and evolution of genomes.

https://github.com/zhenwang100/CHSMiner

Address of the bookmark: https://almob.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1748-7188-4-2

jobTree based python wrapper to run the genome simulation tool suite Evolver

Jit — Fri, 08 Dec 2017 16:26:32 -0600

evolverSimControl (eSC) can be used to simulate multi-chromosome genome evolution on an arbitrary phylogeny (Newick format). In addition to simply running evolver, eSC also automatically creates statistical summaries of the simulation as it runs including text and image files. Also included are convenience scripts to: check on a running simulation and see detailed status and logging information; extract fasta sequence files from the leaf nodes of a completed simulation; extract pairwise multiple alignment files (.maf) from leaf and branch nodes from a completed simulation and with the help of mafJoin, join them together into a single maf covering the entire simulation.

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/dentearl/evolverSimControl

CAMSA :: a tool for Comparative Analysis and Merging of Scaffold Assemblies

Rahul Nayak — Thu, 28 Dec 2017 09:10:26 -0600

CAMSA – is a tool for Comparative Analysis and Merging of Scaffold Assemblies, distributed both as a standalone software package and as Python library under the MIT license.

Main features:

works with any number of scaffold assemblies in de-novo non-progressive fashion
allows to simultaneously work with scaffold assemblies obtained from any in silico and in vitro techniques, supporting multiple existing formats via built-in converters
creates an extensive report with several comparative quality metrics (both on assembly level and on the level of individual assembly points)
constructs a merged combined scaffold assembly
provides an interactive framework for a visual comparative analysis of the given assemblies

Address of the bookmark: https://cblab.org/camsa/

TAREAN: A computational tool for identification and characterization of satellite DNA from unassembled short reads

Surabhi Chaudhary — Tue, 15 May 2018 02:53:11 -0500

TAndem REpeat ANalyzer -TAREAN – is a computational pipeline for unsupervised identification of satellite repeats from unassembled sequence reads. The pipeline uses low-pass whole genome sequence reads and performs their graph-based clustering. Resulting clusters, representing all types of repeats, are then examined for the presence of circular structures and putative satellite repeats are reported.

How to use TAREAN:

Install a local instance of the pipeline using its source code available from bitbucket repository.
Use public Galaxy-based server at https://repeatexplorer-elixir.cerit-sc.cz/. The server is provided in frame of the Elixir CZ project and is maintained by CESNET and CERIT-SC. Simple registration is required to use this service.

Development of TAREAN was supported by ELIXIR CZ research infrastructure project (MEYS Grant No: LM2015047).

References

Novak, P., Avila Robledillo, L., Koblizkova, A., Vrbova, I., Neumann, P., Macas, J. (2017) – TAREAN: a computational tool for identification and characterization of satellite DNA from unassembled short reads. Nucleic Acids Res., doi:10.1093/nar/gkx257

Address of the bookmark: https://bitbucket.org/petrnovak/repex_tarean

EAGLER: a scaffolding tool for long reads.

Jit — Mon, 04 Jun 2018 05:26:03 -0500

EAGLER is a scaffolding tool for long reads. The scaffolder takes as input a draft genome created by any NGS assembler and a set of long reads. The long reads are used to extend the contigs present in the NGS draft and possibly join overlapping contigs. EAGLER supports both PacBio and Oxford Nanopore reads.

The tool should be compatible with most UNIX flavors and has been successfully tested on the following operating systems:

Mac OS X 10.11.1
Mac OS X 10.10.3
Ubuntu 14.04 LTS

https://bib.irb.hr/datoteka/844447.Diplomski_2015_Luka_terbi.pdf

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/mculinovic/EAGLER

mScaffolder: A comparative genome scaffolding tool

Jit — Fri, 15 Jun 2018 04:48:01 -0500

A comparative genome scaffolding tool based on MUMmer

mScaffolder scaffolds a genome using an existing high quality genome as the reference. It aligns the two genomes using nucmer utility from MUMmer and then orders and orients the contigs of the candidate genome guided by their alignments to the reference genome. Please send your questions and comments to mchakrab@uci.edu.

Citation https://www.nature.com/articles/s41588-017-0010-y

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/mahulchak/mscaffolder

FinisherSC:a repeat-aware tool for upgrading de novo assembly using long reads

Jit — Mon, 20 Aug 2018 04:08:50 -0500

Here is the command to run the tool:

python finisherSC.py destinedFolder mummerPath

If you are running on server computer and would like to use multiple threads, then the following commands can generate 20 threads to run FinisherSC.

python finisherSC.py -par 20 destinedFolder mummerPath

Sometimes, if the names of raw reads and contigs consists of special characters/formats, FinisherSC/MUMmer may not parse them correctly. In that case, you want to have a quick renaming of the names of contigs/reads in contigs.fasta or raw_reads.fasta using the following command.

    perl -pe 's/>[^\$]*$/">Seg" . ++$n ."\n"/ge' raw_reads.fasta > newRaw_reads.fasta
    cp newRaw_reads.fasta raw_reads.fasta
    perl -pe 's/>[^\$]*$/">Seg" . ++$n ."\n"/ge' contigs.fasta > newContigs.fasta
    cp newContigs.fasta contigs.fasta

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/kakitone/finishingTool