BOL: Related items

Basics of BLAST Programs !

BioStar — Fri, 26 Jul 2024 06:04:26 -0500

The Basic Local Alignment Search Tool (BLAST) is a powerful bioinformatics program used to compare an input sequence (such as DNA, RNA, or protein sequences) against a database of sequences to find regions of similarity. Developed by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), BLAST is widely used for identifying species, finding functional and evolutionary relationships between sequences, and predicting the function of novel sequences.

Key Features of BLAST:
1. Sequence Comparison: BLAST searches for local alignments between the query sequence and sequences in a database. It identifies regions of similarity, which can help infer functional and evolutionary relationships.

2. Speed and Efficiency: BLAST uses heuristic algorithms, making it faster than exhaustive search methods, suitable for large-scale database searches.

3. Versatility: There are several versions of BLAST for different types of sequence comparisons:
- blastn: Compares a nucleotide query sequence against a nucleotide sequence database.
- blastp: Compares a protein query sequence against a protein sequence database.
- blastx: Compares a nucleotide query sequence translated in all reading frames against a protein sequence database.
- tblastn: Compares a protein query sequence against a nucleotide sequence database translated in all reading frames.
- tblastx: Compares the six-frame translations of a nucleotide query sequence against the six-frame translations of a nucleotide sequence database.

4. Scoring and E-value: BLAST results are scored based on the quality and length of the alignments. The E-value (expect value) indicates the number of alignments one can expect to find by chance, with lower E-values representing more significant matches.

5. Output Formats: BLAST provides results in various formats, including plain text, HTML, XML, and JSON, making it adaptable for different types of analyses and integrations with other tools.

Applications of BLAST:
- Genomic Research: Identifying genes, understanding genetic diversity, and mapping genome sequences.
- Protein Function Prediction: Inferring the function of unknown proteins by comparing them to known protein sequences.
- Evolutionary Studies: Exploring evolutionary relationships between organisms by comparing their genetic material.
- Medical Research: Identifying pathogens, understanding disease mechanisms, and developing treatments by comparing sequences of interest.

Overall, BLAST is an essential tool in bioinformatics, offering a reliable and efficient way to analyze and interpret biological sequence data.

TelomereHunter

Jit — Fri, 02 Feb 2018 04:23:59 -0600

TelomereHunter is a tool for estimating telomere content from human whole-genome sequencing data. It is designed to take BAM files from a tumor and a matching control sample as input. However, it is also possible to run TelomereHunter with one input file. TelomereHunter extracts and sorts telomeric reads from the input sample(s). For the estimation of telomere content, GC biases are taken into account. Finally, the results of TelomereHunter are visualized in several diagrams.

TelomereHunter is available for download at the following address: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/telomerehunter/

Address of the bookmark: http://www.dkfz.de/en/applied-bioinformatics/telomerehunter/telomerehunter.html

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

Mugsy: multiple whole genome alignment tool

Jit — Fri, 08 Dec 2017 17:41:14 -0600

Mugsy is a multiple whole genome aligner. Mugsy uses Nucmer for pairwise alignment, a custom graph based segmentation procedure for identifying collinear regions, and the segment-based progressive multiple alignment strategy from Seqan::TCoffee. Mugsy accepts draft genomes in the form of multi-FASTA files and does not require a reference genome.

To cite Mugsy, use:

Angiuoli SV and Salzberg SL. Mugsy: Fast multiple alignment of closely related whole genomes.Bioinformatics 2011 27(3):334-4

Address of the bookmark: http://mugsy.sourceforge.net/

Multi-CAR: a tool of contig scaffolding using multiple references

Rahul Nayak — Tue, 06 Mar 2018 16:39:41 -0600

we design a simple heuristic method to further revise our single reference-based scaffolding tool CAR into a new one called Multi-CAR such that it can utilize multiple complete genomes of related organisms as references to more accurately order and orient the contigs of a draft genome. In practical usage, our Multi-CAR does not require prior knowledge concerning phylogenetic relationships among the draft and reference genomes and libraries of paired-end reads. To validate Multi-CAR, we have tested it on a real dataset composed of several prokaryotic genomes and also compared its accuracy performance with other multiple reference-based scaffolding tools Ragout and MeDuSa.

Address of the bookmark: http://genome.cs.nthu.edu.tw/Multi-CAR/

Porechop: tool for finding and removing adapters from Oxford Nanopore reads

Rahul Nayak — Tue, 29 May 2018 07:33:44 -0500

Porechop is a tool for finding and removing adapters from Oxford Nanopore reads. Adapters on the ends of reads are trimmed off, and when a read has an adapter in its middle, it is treated as chimeric and chopped into separate reads. Porechop performs thorough alignments to effectively find adapters, even at low sequence identity.

Porechop also supports demultiplexing of Nanopore reads that were barcoded with the Native Barcoding Kit, PCR Barcoding Kit or Rapid Barcoding Kit.

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/rrwick/Porechop

HiGlass: a tool for exploring genomic contact matrices and tracks.

Jit — Mon, 11 Jun 2018 09:44:49 -0500

HiGlass is a tool for exploring genomic contact matrices and tracks. Please take a look at the examples and documentation for a description of the ways that it can be configured to explore and compare contact matrices. To load private data, HiGlass can be run locally within a Docker container. The HiC data in the examples below is from Rao et al. (2014) http://higlass.io/

Address of the bookmark: http://higlass.io/

gSearch: a fast and flexible general search tool for whole-genome sequencing

Jit — Mon, 06 Aug 2018 17:19:15 -0500

gSearch compares sequence variants in the Genome Variation Format (GVF) or Variant Call Format (VCF) with a pre-compiled annotation or with variants in other genomes. Its search algorithms are subsequently optimized and implemented in a multi-threaded manner.

Address of the bookmark: http://ml.ssu.ac.kr/gSearch/index.html

LRCstats: a tool for evaluating long reads correction methods

Aaryan Lokwani — Wed, 22 Aug 2018 11:05:04 -0500

LRCstats is an open-source pipeline for benchmarking DNA long read correction algorithms for long reads outputted by third generation sequencing technology such as machines produced by Pacific Biosciences. The reads produced by third generation sequencing technology, as the name suggests, are longer in length than reads produced by next generation sequencing technologies, such as those produced by Illumina. However, long reads are plagued by high error rates, which can cause issues in downstream analysis. Long read correction algorithms reduce the error rate of long reads either through self-correcting methods or using accurate, short reads outputted by next generation sequencing technologies to correct long reads.

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/cchauve/lrcstats

Heatmapper: web-enabled heat mapping for all

Jit — Mon, 01 Oct 2018 08:34:41 -0500

Heatmapper is a freely available web server that allows users to interactively visualize their data in the form of heat maps through an easy-to-use graphical interface. Heatmapper is a versatile tool that allows users to easily create a wide variety of heat maps for many different data types and applications. Heatmapper allows users to generate, cluster and visualize:

1) expression-based heat maps from transcriptomic, proteomic and metabolomic experiments; 2) pairwise distance maps;

3) correlation maps;

4) image overlay heat maps;

5) latitude and longitude heat maps and

6) geopolitical (choropleth) heat maps.

Heatmapper offers a number of simple and intuitive customization options for easy adjustments to each heat map’s appearance and plotting parameters. Heatmapper also allows users to interactively explore their numeric data values by hovering their cursor over each heat map, or by using a searchable/sortable data table view.

Ref https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27190236

Address of the bookmark: http://www2.heatmapper.ca/