BOL: Related items

Early Genome Screening: The New Health Horoscope!

LEGE — Thu, 02 Jan 2025 19:44:36 -0600

In an era where precision medicine is reshaping healthcare, genome screening is emerging as the modern equivalent of a health horoscope. It offers insights into our biological "stars," unraveling predispositions to various conditions and empowering individuals with knowledge to navigate their health journeys proactively. But how reliable is this "horoscope," and how does it impact our lives?

Understanding Genome Screening

Genome screening involves analyzing an individual's DNA to identify genetic variations that may influence health and disease susceptibility. This can range from simple single-gene tests to comprehensive whole-genome sequencing. By peering into our genetic blueprint, we can uncover risks for conditions like cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and even rare genetic disorders.

The process is straightforward: a saliva or blood sample is collected, and advanced sequencing technologies decipher the genetic code. The results provide a personalized health map, guiding lifestyle modifications, preventive measures, or medical interventions.

A Shift from Reactive to Proactive Healthcare

Traditional healthcare often focuses on treating diseases after they manifest. Genome screening flips this model on its head, enabling a shift toward prevention and early intervention. For instance:

Cancer Risk Management: Individuals with BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene mutations can opt for enhanced screening programs or preventive surgeries to mitigate their risk of breast and ovarian cancers.
Cardiovascular Health: Genetic predispositions to conditions like familial hypercholesterolemia can prompt early cholesterol monitoring and lifestyle adjustments.
Rare Diseases: Identifying carriers of genetic disorders can aid in family planning and reduce the incidence of inherited conditions.

The Ethical and Practical Concerns

While genome screening offers incredible promise, it is not without challenges:

Accuracy and Interpretation: Genetic predisposition does not guarantee disease. Misinterpretation of results can lead to unnecessary anxiety or unwarranted medical interventions.
Privacy and Data Security: Genetic data is highly sensitive. Ensuring robust data protection measures is crucial to prevent misuse.
Accessibility and Equity: High costs and limited availability may restrict access to genome screening, exacerbating health disparities.

Balancing Science and Pseudoscience

The comparison of genome screening to horoscopes isn’t entirely unfounded. Both offer predictive insights, but the scientific foundation of genome screening distinguishes it from astrology. Unlike the alignment of celestial bodies, genetic predictions are based on rigorous data and evidence. However, the probabilistic nature of genetic predispositions underscores the importance of interpreting results in conjunction with clinical and lifestyle factors.

The Road Ahead

As genome screening becomes more affordable and integrated into routine healthcare, its potential to transform lives is immense. Policymakers, healthcare providers, and genetic counselors must collaborate to ensure ethical implementation, public awareness, and equitable access.

Imagine a future where your genetic "horoscope" is a trusted guide, not just a prediction. Early genome screening could help chart a healthier path for generations, making it a cornerstone of personalized medicine. After all, our genes might just hold the key to unlocking a future of better health and well-being.

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

homologizer: Phylogenetic phasing of gene copies into polyploid subgenomes

Abhi — Sat, 03 Jun 2023 19:19:10 -0500

This tutorial describes the usage of homologizer to phase gene copies into polyploid subgenomes. The tutorial is an abbreviated version of a soon-to-be published paper in Methods in Molecular Biology. Please see that paper for many more details and practical considerations for running homologizer analyses. If you use homologizer, please cite the paper in which we first describe the method:

Freyman, W.A., Johnson, M.G., and C.J. Rothfels. 2022. Homologizer: phylogenetic phasing of gene copies into polyploid subgenomes. bioRxiv 2020.10.22.351486v4

homologizer is implemented in RevBayes. Please see http://revbayes.com to download and install RevBayes. For users without previous RevBayes experience, we recommend the tutorials at http://revbayes.com.

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/wf8/homologizer

AfterQC: Automatic Filtering, Trimming, Error Removing and Quality Control for fastq data

Jit — Fri, 29 Jun 2018 03:26:03 -0500

Automatic Filtering, Trimming, Error Removing and Quality Control for fastq data AfterQC can simply go through all fastq files in a folder and then output three folders: good, bad and QC folders, which contains good reads, bad reads and the QC results of each fastq file/pair. Currently it supports processing data from HiSeq 2000/2500/3000/4000, Nextseq 500/550, MiniSeq...and other Illumina 1.8 or newer formats The author has reimplemented this tool in C++ with multithreading support to make it much faster. The new tool is called fastp and can be found at: https://github.com/OpenGene/fastp . If you prefer a C++ based tool, please use fastp instead. https://github.com/OpenGene/AfterQC

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/OpenGene/AfterQC

Indexcov: fast coverage quality control for whole-genome sequencing

Jit — Wed, 29 Aug 2018 09:20:46 -0500

indexcov, an efficient estimator of whole-genome sequencing coverage to rapidly identify samples with aberrant coverage profiles, reveal large-scale chromosomal anomalies, recognize potential batch effects, and infer the sex of a sample. Indexcov is available at https://github.com/brentp/goleft under the MIT license.

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/brentp/goleft

Ktrim: an extra-fast and accurate adapter- and quality-trimmer for sequencing data

Jit — Thu, 11 Feb 2021 21:39:05 -0600

Ktrim is written in C++ for GNU Linux/Unix platforms. After uncompressing the source package, you can find an executable file ktrim under bin/ directory compiled using g++ v4.8.5 and linked with libz v1.2.7 for Linux x86_64 system. If you could not run it (which is usually caused by low version of libc++ or libz library) or you want to build a version optimized for your system, you can re-compile the programs:

user@linux$ make clean && make

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/hellosunking/Ktrim

Π-cyc: A Reference-free SNP Discovery Application using Parallel Graph Search

Jit — Tue, 28 Jan 2020 03:34:23 -0600

Reference free SNP search for comparative population genomics: multiple samples run simultanously. **experimental phase, compiles and runs with OpenMPI-1.8.8 with Intel Compiler only

Cycles enumeration (aka Bubbles) as part of de novo de bruijn graphs assembly using colours can be unpractical for large error prone genomes which makes the assembly process produce an excessive number of false positive cycles. Our solution is to search the graph in multicores shared memory parallel mode using graph decomposition then use filtering method to generate good quality SNPs.

https://arxiv.org/abs/1809.06700

https://github.com/redayounsi/2KP2P

/2kp2omp/bin/main_2kp2_K63_C2 -i fastq_files.txt -o fungus_bub.fasta -r stat_fungus.txt -c cov_fungus_hash.txt -k 63 -h 20 -b 100 -g 600 -l 100 -f 16 -t 5.0 -x 1 -v 0 -p 1 -y 1 -u 1

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/redayounsi/2KP2P

GRASS: a generic algorithm for scaffolding next-generation sequencing assemblies.

Abhimanyu Singh — Tue, 23 May 2017 05:20:32 -0500

GRASS (GeneRic ASsembly Scaffolder)-a novel algorithm for scaffolding second-generation sequencing assemblies capable of using diverse information sources. GRASS offers a mixed-integer programming formulation of the contig scaffolding problem, which combines contig order, distance and orientation in a single optimization objective. The resulting optimization problem is solved using an expectation-maximization procedure and an unconstrained binary quadratic programming approximation of the original problem. We compared GRASS with existing HTS scaffolders using Illumina paired reads of three bacterial genomes. Our algorithm constructs a comparable number of scaffolds, but makes fewer errors. This result is further improved when additional data, in the form of related genome sequences, are used.

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/AlexeyG/GRASS

ARC: pipeline which facilitates iterative, reference guided de novo assemblies

Jit — Thu, 26 Jul 2018 09:20:26 -0500

ARC is a pipeline which facilitates iterative, reference guided de novo assemblies with the intent of:

Reducing time in analysis and increasing accuracy of results by only considering those reads which should assemble together.
Reducing/removing reference bias as compared to mapping based approaches.

The software is designed to work in situations where a whole-genome assembly is not the objective, but rather when the researcher wishes to assemble discreet 'targets' contained within next-generation shotgun sequence data. ARC decomplexifies the traditionally difficult problem of assembly by breaking the reads into small, manageable subsets which can then be assembled quickly and efficiently in parallel. Applications include those in which the researcher wishes to de novo assemble specific content and a set of semi-similar reference targets is available to initialize the assembly process.

https://ibest.github.io/ARC/

Address of the bookmark: https://ibest.github.io/ARC/

Liftoff: an accurate tool that maps annotations in GFF or GTF between assemblies

Jit — Tue, 30 Jun 2020 21:40:52 -0500

Liftoff, an accurate tool that maps annotations in GFF or GTF between assemblies of the same, or closely-related species. Unlike current coordinate lift-over tools which require a pre-generated “chain” file as input, Liftoff is a standalone tool that takes two genome assemblies and a reference annotation as input and outputs an annotation of the target genome.

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/agshumate/Liftoff