BOL: Related items

Step-by-Step Guide to Running Genome Assembly

Abhi — Fri, 13 Dec 2024 11:35:55 -0600

Genome assembly is a critical process in bioinformatics, enabling the reconstruction of an organism's genome from short DNA sequence reads. Whether you’re working on a new microbial genome or a complex eukaryotic organism, this guide will walk you through the steps of genome assembly using state-of-the-art tools and best practices.

What is Genome Assembly?

Genome assembly involves piecing together short DNA sequence reads generated by sequencing platforms (e.g., Illumina, PacBio, Oxford Nanopore) into longer, contiguous sequences called contigs. This can be performed as:

De Novo Assembly: Without a reference genome.
Reference-Guided Assembly: Using a reference genome to guide the assembly process.

Step 1: Preparing Your Data

Before starting the assembly, ensure that your raw sequencing data is high quality.

Input Data
- Short Reads: Illumina sequencing generates short, accurate reads ideal for scaffolding.
- Long Reads: PacBio and Nanopore sequencing provide long reads for resolving repetitive regions.
Quality Control (QC)
Use tools like FastQC or MultiQC to assess the quality of your reads:

fastqc reads.fastq multiqc .

Look for issues like low-quality bases, adapter contamination, or overrepresented sequences.
Read Trimming and Filtering
Trim low-quality bases and adapters using Trimmomatic or Cutadapt:

trimmomatic PE reads_R1.fastq reads_R2.fastq trimmed_R1.fastq trimmed_R2.fastq \ ILLUMINACLIP:adapters.fa:2:30:10 LEADING:3 TRAILING:3 SLIDINGWINDOW:4:20 MINLEN:36

Step 2: Choosing an Assembly Strategy

Select an assembly strategy based on your data type:

Short-Read Assemblers:
- SPAdes: Popular for microbial genomes.
- Velvet: Fast for smaller genomes.
Long-Read Assemblers:
- Canu: Ideal for long-read datasets.
- Flye: Versatile for small and large genomes.
Hybrid Assemblers:
- MaSuRCA: Combines short and long reads.
- Unicycler: Optimized for bacterial genomes.

Step 3: Running the Assembly

3.1. SPAdes (Short-Read Assembly)

SPAdes is an excellent choice for small genomes, such as bacteria.

spades.py -1 trimmed_R1.fastq -2 trimmed_R2.fastq -o spades_output

The output includes assembled contigs (contigs.fasta) and scaffolds (scaffolds.fasta).

3.2. Canu (Long-Read Assembly)

Canu is designed for high-error long reads from PacBio or Nanopore.

canu -p genome -d canu_output genomeSize=4.7m -nanopore-raw reads.fastq

The output will be in canu_output/genome.contigs.fasta.

3.3. Hybrid Assembly with Unicycler

Unicycler combines short and long reads for improved assemblies.

unicycler -1 trimmed_R1.fastq -2 trimmed_R2.fastq -l long_reads.fastq -o unicycler_output

Step 4: Assessing Assembly Quality

After assembly, evaluate its quality using the following tools:

QUAST
QUAST generates assembly statistics, such as N50, genome size, and GC content:

quast contigs.fasta -o quast_output
BUSCO
BUSCO checks genome completeness by identifying conserved genes:

busco -i contigs.fasta -o busco_output -l fungi_odb10 -m genome
Assembly Graph Visualization
Visualize assembly graphs with Bandage:

Bandage load assembly_graph.gfa

Step 5: Post-Assembly Steps

Polishing
Improve assembly accuracy using tools like Pilon (for short reads) or Racon (for long reads).

racon long_reads.fasta mapped_reads.sam contigs.fasta > polished_contigs.fasta
Scaffolding
Link contigs into scaffolds using tools like SSPACE or Opera-LG if required.
Annotation
Annotate the assembled genome using Prokka for prokaryotes or Maker for eukaryotes.

prokka --outdir annotation_output --prefix genome contigs.fasta

Step 6: Sharing and Archiving

Submit to Public Repositories
Share your assembly in databases like NCBI GenBank, ENA, or DDBJ.
Metadata Preparation
Include detailed metadata for your submission, such as organism name, sequencing platform, and coverage.

Best Practices

Always perform quality checks at each stage to ensure data integrity.
Use multiple tools to cross-validate results when working with complex genomes.
Document parameters and software versions for reproducibility.

Conclusion

Genome assembly is a powerful process that transforms raw sequencing data into a coherent representation of an organism’s genome. By following this step-by-step guide, you can successfully assemble genomes and uncover valuable biological insights. Whether you’re assembling a microbial genome or tackling the complexities of a eukaryotic genome, these tools and strategies will set you on the path to success.

Genomic architecture surrounding the fusion site of human chromosome 2

LEGE — Tue, 04 Mar 2025 12:26:29 -0600

The article "Genomic Structure and Evolution of the Ancestral Chromosome Fusion Site in 2q13–2q14.1 and Paralogous Regions on Other Human Chromosomes (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC187548/)" explores the genomic architecture surrounding the fusion site of human chromosome 2. This fusion event is a key evolutionary marker distinguishing humans from other great apes, as humans have 46 chromosomes while chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans possess 48. The fusion occurred through an end-to-end joining of two ancestral chromosomes, which remain separate in nonhuman primates.

Key Findings:

Chromosomal Fusion and Its Molecular Signature:
- The fusion site is located at 2q13–2q14.1 and is characterized by degenerate telomeric sequences appearing interstitially, indicating the historical head-to-head joining of ancestral chromosomes.
- Despite being a signature of a past fusion event, these telomeric repeats are no longer functional and have undergone sequence degradation over time.
Extensive Duplications in the Surrounding Genomic Region:
- The study identifies large-scale segmental duplications flanking the fusion site, with several of these regions duplicated and scattered across multiple chromosomes.
- These duplications are predominantly located in subtelomeric and pericentromeric regions, suggesting their role in genomic instability and chromosomal evolution.
Paralogous Regions and Their Evolutionary Relationships:
- A 168-kilobase (kb) segment near the fusion site has 98%–99% sequence identity with three regions on chromosome 9 (9pter, 9p11.2, and 9q13).
- Another 67-kb region distal to the fusion site shows a high degree of homology to sequences in chromosome 22qter.
- Additionally, a 100-kb segment exhibits 96% sequence identity with a region in chromosome 2q11.2.
Comparative Genomics and Evolutionary Implications:
- By comparing the duplicated sequences and their arrangement in primates, the researchers traced the order of duplication events leading to their present distribution.
- The presence of specific repetitive elements within these duplicated segments serves as evolutionary markers that help infer their historical rearrangements.
- Some of these duplicated regions are associated with chromosomal inversion breakpoints, potentially contributing to evolutionary changes in primates.
- Recurrent structural rearrangements in these regions have been linked to human chromosomal disorders.

Conclusions and Implications:

The findings provide valuable insights into the structural evolution of human chromosome 2, which played a crucial role in human speciation.
Understanding these segmental duplications and their evolutionary trajectories sheds light on genomic instability, which may contribute to human genetic diseases.
The study highlights how large-scale chromosomal rearrangements, such as fusion and duplication, have influenced the evolutionary divergence of humans from other primates.

This research advances our understanding of human genome evolution and offers a foundation for studying the effects of structural variants in genetic disorders.

Ranbow: a haplotype assembler for polyploid genomes

Jit — Fri, 01 Jun 2018 07:21:54 -0500

Ranbow is a haplotype assembler for polyploid genomes. It has been developed for the haplotype assembly of the hexaploid sweet potato genome, which is highly heterozygous. Ranbow can also be applied to other polyploid genomes. After a first phasing, Ranbow utilizes the assembled haplotypes to improve the accuracy of variant calling results and to infer the evolutionary history of the organism´s genome. Ranbow has three main modes of function: ranbow hap: for haplotyping ranbow eval: for evaluating of the assemble haplotypes by gold standard (long) reads ranbow phylo: for the phylogenetic analysis

Address of the bookmark: https://www.molgen.mpg.de/ranbow

BEDOPS v2.4.26: high-performance genomic feature operations

Jit — Mon, 12 Jun 2017 10:11:01 -0500

BEDOPS v2.4.26 is a suite of tools to address common questions raised in genomic studies — mostly with regard to overlap and proximity relationships between data sets. It aims to be scalable and flexible, facilitating the efficient and accurate analysis and management of large-scale genomic data.

The overview section of the BEDOPS v2.4.26 documentation summarizes the toolkit, functionality and performance enhancements. The reference table offers documentation for all applications and scripts.

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/bedops/bedops

Many-Core Engine (MCE) for Perl example

Jit — Tue, 31 Jan 2017 05:37:50 -0600

MCE spawns a pool of workers and therefore does not fork a new process per each element of data. Instead, MCE follows a bank queuing model. Imagine the line being the data and bank-tellers the parallel workers. MCE enhances that model by adding the ability to chunk the next n elements from the input stream to the next available worker.

CORE MODULES

Three modules make up the core engine for MCE.

MCE::Core: Provides the Core API for Many-Core Engine. The various MCE options are described here.
MCE::Signal: Temporary directory creation, cleanup, and signal handling.
MCE::Util: Utility functions for Many-Core Engine.

MCE EXTRAS

There are 4 add-on modules for use with MCE.

MCE::Candy: Provides a collection of sugar methods and output iterators for preserving output order.
MCE::Mutex: Provides a simple semaphore implementation supporting threads and processes.
MCE::Queue: Provides a hybrid queuing implementation for MCE supporting normal queues and priority queues from a single module. MCE::Queue exchanges data via the core engine to enable queuing to work for both children (spawned from fork) and threads.
MCE::Relay: Enables workers to receive and pass on information orderly with zero involvement by the manager process while running.

MCE MODELS

The models take Many-Core Engine to a new level for ease of use. Two options (chunk_size and max_workers) are configured automatically as well as spawning and shutdown.

MCE::Loop: Provides a parallel loop utilizing MCE for building creative loops.
MCE::Flow: A parallel flow model for building creative applications. This makes use of user_tasks in MCE. The author has full control when utilizing this model. MCE::Flow is similar to MCE::Loop, but allows for multiple code blocks to run in parallel with a slight change to syntax.
MCE::Grep: Provides a parallel grep implementation similar to the native grep function.
MCE::Map: Provides a parallel map model similar to the native map function.
MCE::Step: Provides a parallel step implementation utilizing MCE::Queue between user tasks. MCE::Step is a spin off from MCE::Flow with a touch of MCE::Stream. This model, introduced in 1.506, allows one to pass data from one sub-task into the next transparently.
MCE::Stream: Provides an efficient parallel implementation for chaining multiple maps and greps together through user_tasks and MCE::Queue. Like with MCE::Flow, MCE::Stream can run multiple code blocks in parallel with a slight change to syntax from MCE::Map and MCE::Grep.

MISCELLANEOUS

Miscellaneous additions included with the distribution.

MCE::Examples: Describes various demonstrations for MCE including a Monte Carlo simulation.
MCE::Subs: Exports functions mapped directly to MCE methods; e.g. mce_wid. The module allows 3 options; :manager, :worker, and :getter.

REQUIREMENTS

Perl 5.8.0 or later. PDL::IO::Storable is required in scripts running PDL.

SOURCE AND FURTHER READING

The source, cookbook, and examples are hosted at GitHub.

PaReBrick: PArallel REarrangements and BReaks identification toolkit

Jit — Fri, 08 Oct 2021 10:20:03 -0500

PaReBrick. The tool takes a collection of strains represented as a sequence of oriented synteny blocks and a phylogenetic tree as input data. It identifies rearrangements, tests them for consistency with a tree, and sorts the events by their parallelism score. The tool provides diagrams of the neighbors for each block of interest, allowing the detection of horizontally transferred blocks or their extra copies and the inversions in which copied blocks are involved.We demonstrated PaReBrick’s efficiency and accuracy and showed its potential to detect genome rearrangements responsible for pathogenicity and adaptation in bacterial genomes

More at https://academic.oup.com/bioinformatics/advance-article/doi/10.1093/bioinformatics/btab691/6380551

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/ctlab/parallel-rearrangements

ALLHiC: Phasing and scaffolding polyploid genomes based on Hi-C data

BioStar — Thu, 20 Dec 2018 12:03:32 -0600

The major problem of scaffolding polyploid genome is that Hi-C signals are frequently detected between allelic haplotypes and any existing stat of art Hi-C scaffolding program links the allelic haplotypes together. To solve the problem, we developed a new Hi-C scaffolding pipeline, called ALLHIC, specifically tailored to the polyploid genomes. ALLHIC pipeline contains a total of 5 steps: prune, partition, rescue, optimize and build.

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/tangerzhang/ALLHiC/wiki

Public Databases for Bioinformatics !

Jit — Tue, 23 Mar 2021 05:32:15 -0500

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-17155-y

Server Infrastructure:

File Server:

dhara: Synology 3614 Storage Appliance
4 Core Xeon
108TB disk storage
10Gb ethernet to SCG3
Access atx: dhara:5000
Has btsync server (try it - its much better than dropbox)

Compute Servers:

nandi: Kundaje and Phi Server
24 intel cores
256GB RAM
500GB of SSD storage 
36TB RAID6 local storage
4 Intel Phi's (space for 4 more GPU's)


durga: Montgomery and sensitive data
24 intel cores
256GB RAM
500GB of SSD RAID0 storage 
60TB RAID6 local storage

mitra: Bassik and Web/DB Server
24 core
256GB RAM 
500GB of SSD RAID0 storage 
36TB RAID6 local storage

vayu: Kundaje GPU server
4 core
64GB RAM 
200GB of SSD storage 
8TB RAID10 local storage
4 Nvidia GTX 970 4GB GPUs

amold: Bickel and SGE server
32 AMD core
128GB RAM 
200GB of SSD storage 
12TB RAID5 local storage

wotan: Bickel and SGE server
64 AMD core
256GB RAM 
200GB of SSD storage 
12TB RAID5 local storage

Filesystem:

/users/$USER
default home directory
full backups nightly 
nfs mount to dhara
should store code, papers, and other highly processed data here

/mnt/data/
globally accessible data
should store common data here
e.g. genomes and indexes, annotations, ENCODE data  
if you dont want this to count towards your quote you must chown

/mnt/lab_data/$LAB/
lab accessible data
should store lab project data here 
e.g. ATAC-seq prediction data, enhancer prediction, motif calls

/srv/scratch/$USER
fast local storage
not backed up, but on raid and data will never be deleted
most analysis should be performed here

/srv/persistent/$USER
fast local storage
synced nightly, but not backed up
       ie if the hard drives fail or you delete something and notice 
       within 24 hours we can recover. Otherwise not. (vs home which is 
       properly backed up )  
intermediate analysis products that would be hard to recover should be stored here 
       e.g. stochastic analysis results that need to be kept so that paper 
       results can be reproduced

/srv/www/$LABNAME/
web accessible from mitra.stanford.edu
*NOT BACKED UP*

Some parallel programming patterns:

# gzip a bunch of files
parallel gzip -- *.FILESTOGZIP

# fork example in python:
(for more detailed examples look at 
 https://github.com/nboley/grit/ grit/lib/multiprocessing_utils.py)

import os
import time
import random

import multiprocessing

class ProcessSafeOPStream( object ):
    def __init__( self, writeable_obj ):
        self.writeable_obj = writeable_obj
        self.lock = multiprocessing.Lock()
        self.name = self.writeable_obj.name
        return
    
    def write( self, data ):
        self.lock.acquire()
        self.writeable_obj.write( data )
        self.writeable_obj.flush()
        self.lock.release()
        return
    
    def close( self ):
        self.writeable_obj.close()

def worker(queue, ofp):
    # Try without this
    random.seed()
    while True:
        i = queue.get()
        if i == 'FINISHED': return
        # simulate an expensive function
        x = random.random()
        time.sleep(x/10)
        print i, x
        ofp.write("%i\t%s\n" % (i, x))

NSIMS = 10000
NPROC = 25

# populate queue
todo = multiprocessing.Queue()
for i in xrange(NSIMS): todo.put(i)
for i in xrange(NPROC): todo.put('FINISHED')

ofp = ProcessSafeOPStream( open("output.txt", "w") )

pids = []
for i in xrange(NPROC):
    pid = os.fork()
    if pid == 0:
       worker(todo, ofp)
       os._exit(0)
    else:
       pids.append(pid)  

for pid in pids:
    os.waitpid(pid, 0)

ofp.close()

print "FINISHED"

For use case 1 we obtained the following ENCODE and ROADMAP datasets https://www.encodeproject.org/files/ENCFF446WOD/@@download/ENCFF446WOD.bed.gz, https://www.encodeproject.org/files/ENCFF546PJU/@@download/ENCFF546PJU.bam, https://www.encodeproject.org/files/ENCFF059BEU/@@download/ENCFF059BEU.bam. Blacklisted regions were obtained from http://mitra.stanford.edu/kundaje/akundaje/release/blacklists/hg38-human/hg38.blacklist.bed.gz. The human genome version hg38 was obtained from http://hgdownload.cse.ucsc.edu/goldenPath/hg38/bigZips/hg38.fa.gz.

For use case 2 we used the set of narrowPeak files summarized in https://github.com/wkopp/janggu_usecases/tree/master/extra/urls.txt (archived version v1.0.1). The human genome version hg19 was obtained from http://hgdownload.cse.ucsc.edu/goldenPath/hg19/bigZips/hg19.fa.gz

For use case 3 we used the ENCODE datasets https://www.encodeproject.org/files/ENCFF591XCX/@@download/ENCFF591XCX.bam, https://www.encodeproject.org/files/ENCFF736LHE/@@download/ENCFF736LHE.bigWig, https://www.encodeproject.org/files/ENCFF177HHM/@@download/ENCFF177HHM.bam as we as the GENCODE annotation v29 from ftp://ftp.ebi.ac.uk/pub/databases/gencode/Gencode_human/release_29/gencode.v29.annotation.gtf.gz.

Address of the bookmark: http://mitra.stanford.edu/

Ribbon: Visualizing complex genome alignments and structural variation:

Jit — Wed, 29 Nov 2017 07:40:22 -0600

Ribbon can be used for long reads, short reads, paired-end reads, and assembly/genome alignments. Instructions for each data format are available by clicking on "instructions" in each tab on the right.

Local installation:

You can install Ribbon locally from Github by following the instructions here: https://github.com/MariaNattestad/Ribbon

Address of the bookmark: http://genomeribbon.com/

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