BOL: Related items

Refseq viraal genome sequences !

Jit — Sat, 11 Dec 2021 08:35:18 -0600

List of all viruses on NCBI

https://ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/refseq/release/viral/

Address of the bookmark: https://ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/refseq/release/viral/

Bacterial genome assembly !!

Jit — Fri, 05 May 2017 06:11:22 -0500

This tutorial will serve as an example of how to use free and open-source genome assembly and secondary scaffolding tools to generate high quality assemblies of bacterial sequence data. The bacterial sample used in this tutorial will be referred to simply as “Species” since it is live data. This data is paired-end data, meaning that there are forward and reverse reads, which we will designate as Sample_R1.fastq and Sample_R2.fastq, respectively.

https://github.com/jennomics/WorkflowPaper/blob/master/Genome%20Assembly%20and%20Annotation.md

Address of the bookmark: http://bioinformatics.uconn.edu/bacterial-genome-assembly-tutorial/

KOALA: KEGG's internal annotation tool for K number assignment of KEGG GENES using SSEARCH computation

Abhimanyu Singh — Wed, 12 Dec 2018 09:16:55 -0600

KOALA (KEGG Orthology And Links Annotation) is KEGG's internal annotation tool for K number assignment of KEGG GENES using SSEARCH computation. BlastKOALA and GhostKOALA assign K numbers to the user's sequence data by BLAST and GHOSTX searches, respectively, against a nonredundant set of KEGG GENES. Annotate Sequence in KEGG Mapper and Pathogen Checker in KEGG Pathogen are special interfaces to the BlastKOALA server and can be executed in an interactive mode. See Step-by-step Instructions.

Reference: Kanehisa, M., Sato, Y., and Morishima, K. (2016) BlastKOALA and GhostKOALA: KEGG tools for functional characterization of genome and metagenome sequences. J. Mol. Biol. 428, 726-731. [pubmed] [pdf]

Address of the bookmark: https://www.kegg.jp/blastkoala/

Exploring Bacterial Comparative Genomics: A Bioinformatics Approach

LEGE — Sat, 14 Dec 2024 12:31:14 -0600

In the world of microbiology, bacteria have long fascinated scientists for their diversity, adaptability, and crucial roles in ecosystems and human health. Comparative genomics—a field that involves analyzing and comparing the genomes of different organisms—has revolutionized our understanding of bacterial evolution, adaptation, and pathogenicity. By leveraging bioinformatics tools and techniques, researchers can uncover genomic insights that were once hidden. This blog delves into the principles, methodologies, and applications of bacterial comparative genomics from a bioinformatics perspective.

What is Bacterial Comparative Genomics?

Comparative genomics involves the systematic comparison of genomes across different bacterial species or strains. This approach allows scientists to:

Identify conserved and unique genes.
Explore genetic determinants of pathogenicity.
Understand bacterial evolution and phylogenetics.
Investigate horizontal gene transfer and its role in antibiotic resistance.

Bioinformatics is central to these analyses, enabling the processing and interpretation of large-scale genomic data.

Key Steps in Bacterial Comparative Genomics

Genome Sequencing and Assembly: The process begins with obtaining high-quality bacterial genome sequences. Advances in next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies have made it faster and more affordable to sequence bacterial genomes. Tools such as SPAdes and Velvet are commonly used for genome assembly.
Genome Annotation: Annotating a genome involves identifying genes, regulatory elements, and other genomic features. Automated tools like Prokka and RAST provide functional annotations, allowing researchers to predict the roles of genes and proteins.
Genome Alignment: Aligning genomes is crucial for identifying conserved regions, single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), and structural variations. Tools like Mauve and progressiveMauve are commonly employed for whole-genome alignments.
Comparative Analyses:
- Core and Pan-genome Analysis: The core genome consists of genes shared across all strains of a species, while the pan-genome includes all genes found in any strain. Software like Roary and BPGA can perform core and pan-genome analyses.
- Phylogenetic Analysis: Comparative genomics often involves reconstructing evolutionary relationships. Tools such as MEGA and IQ-TREE facilitate phylogenetic tree construction based on genomic data.
- Functional Enrichment Analysis: To understand the biological significance of unique or shared genes, functional enrichment analysis using databases like GO (Gene Ontology) and KEGG is essential.

Recommended Bioinformatics Tools for Comparative Genomics

Here are some additional bioinformatics tools that can aid bacterial comparative genomics:

OrthoFinder: For accurate ortholog identification across multiple genomes.
PanOCT: Specifically designed for pan-genome clustering and annotation.
FASTANI: A tool for calculating Average Nucleotide Identity (ANI) for microbial genome comparisons.
CIRCOS: For visually comparing genomic data through circular genome plots.
Galaxy Platform: A user-friendly web-based platform offering numerous genomic analysis tools.
BLAST: Essential for sequence alignment and similarity searches.
PhyloSift: Focused on phylogenetic analysis of microbial genomes using marker genes.

These tools, in combination with the methods discussed, provide a robust framework for conducting comprehensive comparative genomic studies.

Applications of Bacterial Comparative Genomics

Understanding Pathogenicity: Comparative genomics helps identify virulence factors that distinguish pathogenic strains from non-pathogenic relatives. For instance, comparing genomes of Escherichia coli strains has revealed key genetic determinants of pathogenicity in enterohemorrhagic strains.
Antibiotic Resistance Research: The spread of antibiotic resistance genes through horizontal gene transfer is a major global concern. Comparative analyses can trace the origins and dissemination of resistance genes, aiding in the development of countermeasures.
Microbial Ecology and Evolution: By studying genomic variations, researchers can understand how bacteria adapt to different environments. This is particularly relevant for extremophiles and symbiotic bacteria.
Vaccine Development: Identifying conserved antigens across pathogenic strains is critical for vaccine design. Comparative genomics has been instrumental in developing vaccines against pathogens like Neisseria meningitidis.
Biotechnology Applications: Comparative studies can uncover unique metabolic pathways in bacteria, paving the way for applications in bioremediation, synthetic biology, and industrial microbiology.

Challenges in Bacterial Comparative Genomics

While the field has made significant strides, several challenges remain:

Data Overload: The rapid growth of sequencing data requires robust computational infrastructure and efficient algorithms.
Genome Plasticity: High rates of horizontal gene transfer and genome rearrangements in bacteria complicate comparative analyses.
Annotation Accuracy: Automated annotation tools are not infallible, and manual curation is often needed for high-confidence results.
Interpreting Non-Coding Regions: Understanding the functional significance of non-coding genomic regions remains a challenge.

Future Directions

The integration of bacterial comparative genomics with other ‘omics’ approaches—such as transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics—promises a more comprehensive understanding of bacterial biology. Additionally, advancements in machine learning and artificial intelligence are likely to further enhance bioinformatics analyses, enabling the prediction of complex phenotypes from genomic data.

Conclusion

Bacterial comparative genomics, driven by bioinformatics, continues to unravel the complexities of bacterial life. From combating antibiotic resistance to uncovering the secrets of microbial evolution, this interdisciplinary field holds immense potential for addressing pressing challenges in microbiology and beyond. As technology advances, so too will our ability to harness the power of comparative genomics for scientific and societal benefit.

Gupta Lab

Sat, 29 Dec 2018 13:18:31 -0600

Work include (i) understanding the evolutionary relationships among different prokaryotic and eukaryotic organisms; (ii) Understanding the cellular functions of these lineage-specific signature proteins as well as lineage-specific conserved inserts and deletions in important housekeeping proteins by genetic and biochemical studies; (iii) Development of novel diagnostic methods (PCR based and immunological) for identification of different groups of organisms based upon these signature proteins and conserved indels; (iv) The use of these lineage-specific probes with predicitive ability to identify/explore the presence of different groups of organisms in metagenomic sequences from various environments.

https://fhs.mcmaster.ca/gupta-lab/index.html

SocBiN Bioinformatics 2014

Tue, 03 Sep 2013 18:50:20 -0500

14th annual conference in Bioinformatics

Date : June 10-13

Organizers: The Society for Bioinformatics in Northern European countries (SocBiN) and the Norwegian Bioinformatics Platform / ELIXIR.NO

Venue: Department of Informatics, University of Oslo, Norway

Topics:
Tools and technologies for integrative bioinformatics
Metagenomics
Comparative genomics and phylogeny
Post-ENCODE bioinformatics
Gene regulation
Cancer genomes
Marine genomics

MEGAHIT: an ultra-fast single-node solution for large and complex metagenomics assembly via succinct de Bruijn graph

Jit — Wed, 14 Nov 2018 04:50:27 -0600

MEGAHIT is a single node assembler for large and complex metagenomics NGS reads, such as soil. It makes use of succinct de Bruijn graph (SdBG) to achieve low memory assembly. MEGAHIT can optionally utilize a CUDA-enabled GPU to accelerate its SdBG contstruction. The GPU-accelerated version of MEGAHIT has been tested on NVIDIA GTX680 (4G memory) and Tesla K40c (12G memory) with CUDA 5.5, 6.0 and 6.5. MEGAHIT v1.0 or greater also supports IBM Power PC and has been tested on IBM POWER8.

https://academic.oup.com/bioinformatics/article/31/10/1674/177884

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/voutcn/megahit

MetaEuk - sensitive, high-throughput gene discovery and annotation for large-scale eukaryotic metagenomics

Jit — Wed, 13 Jan 2021 19:29:32 -0600

MetaEuk is a modular toolkit designed for large-scale gene discovery and annotation in eukaryotic metagenomic contigs. Metaeuk combines the fast and sensitive homology search capabilities of MMseqs2 with a dynamic programming procedure to recover optimal exons sets. It reduces redundancies in multiple discoveries of the same gene and resolves conflicting gene predictions on the same strand. MetaEuk is GPL-licensed open source software that is implemented in C++ and available for Linux and macOS. The software is designed to run on multiple cores.

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/soedinglab/metaeuk

SqueezeMeta: a fully automated metagenomics pipeline, from reads to bins

BioStar — Sat, 06 Jul 2024 04:29:16 -0500

SqueezeMeta is a full automatic pipeline for metagenomics/metatranscriptomics, covering all steps of the analysis. SqueezeMeta includes multi-metagenome support allowing the co-assembly of related metagenomes and the retrieval of individual genomes via binning procedures. Thus, SqueezeMeta features several unique characteristics:

Co-assembly procedure with read mapping for estimation of the abundances of genes in each metagenome
Co-assembly of a large number of metagenomes via merging of individual metagenomes
Includes binning and bin checking, for retrieving individual genomes
The results are stored in a database, where they can be easily exported and shared, and can be inspected anywhere using a web interface.
Internal checks for the assembly and binning steps inform about the consistency of contigs and bins, allowing to spot potential chimeras.
Metatranscriptomic support via mapping of cDNA reads against reference metagenomes

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/jtamames/SqueezeMeta

Shinyheatmap

Jit — Fri, 21 Oct 2016 05:12:11 -0500

Background: Transcriptomics, metabolomics, metagenomics, and other various next-generation sequencing (-omics) fields are known for their production of large datasets. Visualizing such big data has posed technical challenges in biology, both in terms of available computational resources as well as programming acumen. Since heatmaps are used to depict high-dimensional numerical data as a colored grid of cells, efficiency and speed have often proven to be critical considerations in the process of successfully converting data into graphics. For example, rendering interactive heatmaps from large input datasets (e.g., 100k+ rows) has been computationally infeasible on both desktop computers and web browsers. In addition to memory requirements, programming skills and knowledge have frequently been barriers-to-entry for creating highly customizable heatmaps. Results: We propose shinyheatmap: an advanced user-friendly heatmap software suite capable of efficiently creating highly customizable static and interactive biological heatmaps in a web browser. shinyheatmap is a low memory footprint program, making it particularly well-suited for the interactive visualization of extremely large datasets that cannot typically be computed in-memory due to size restrictions. Conclusions: shinyheatmap is hosted online as a freely available web server with an intuitive graphical user interface: http://shinyheatmap.com. The methods are implemented in R, and are available as part of the shinyheatmap project at: https://github.com/Bohdan-Khomtchouk/shinyheatmap.

More at http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/09/21/076463

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