BOL: Related items

iSeqQC: a tool for expression-based quality control in RNA sequencing

BioStar — Sun, 16 Feb 2020 08:47:17 -0600

iSeqQC, an expression-based QC tool that detects outliers either produced due to variable laboratory conditions or due to dissimilarity within a phenotypic group. iSeqQC implements various statistical approaches including unsupervised clustering, agglomerative hierarchical clustering and correlation coefficients to provide insight into outliers.

http://cancerwebpa.jefferson.edu/iSeqQC/

https://bmcbioinformatics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12859-020-3399-8

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/gkumar09/iSeqQC

IVA: accurate de novo assembly of RNA virus genomes

Neel — Wed, 23 Jun 2021 07:51:59 -0500

IVA (Iterative Virus Assembler) designed specifically for read pairs sequenced at highly variable depth from RNA virus samples. We tested IVA on datasets from 140 sequenced samples from human immunodeficiency virus-1 or influenza-virus-infected people and demonstrated that IVA outperforms all other virus de novo assemblers.

Availability and implementation: The software runs under Linux, has the GPLv3 licence and is freely available from http://sanger-pathogens.github.io/iva

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25725497/

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/sanger-pathogens/iva

piRNA and Bioinformatics: Decoding the Guardians of the Genome

LEGE — Sat, 07 Dec 2024 02:15:11 -0600

In the symphony of small RNAs, PIWI-interacting RNAs (piRNAs) stand out as the protectors of genomic integrity. These small, non-coding RNAs play critical roles in silencing transposable elements, regulating gene expression, and maintaining germline stability. The rise of bioinformatics has revolutionized our understanding of piRNAs, enabling researchers to decipher their biogenesis, functions, and evolutionary significance.

What Are piRNAs?

piRNAs are the largest class of small non-coding RNAs, typically 24–32 nucleotides in length. Unlike microRNAs (miRNAs) and small interfering RNAs (siRNAs), piRNAs do not rely on Dicer enzymes for maturation. Instead, they are processed from long single-stranded precursors and associate with PIWI proteins, a subclass of the Argonaute protein family.

The primary functions of piRNAs include:

Silencing Transposable Elements: By targeting transposons, piRNAs prevent genomic instability, particularly in germline cells.
Regulating Gene Expression: piRNAs modulate gene expression at transcriptional and post-transcriptional levels.
Epigenetic Modulation: They guide epigenetic modifications, such as DNA methylation, to specific genomic loci.

Challenges in piRNA Research

Studying piRNAs is fraught with challenges, including:

Short Length: Their small size complicates sequencing and alignment.
Lack of Sequence Conservation: Unlike miRNAs, piRNAs exhibit limited sequence conservation across species.
Complex Biogenesis: The intricate pathways of piRNA generation require sophisticated computational tools to unravel.

Bioinformatics: Illuminating the World of piRNAs

Bioinformatics has emerged as an indispensable tool for studying piRNAs, facilitating their discovery, annotation, and functional analysis. Here's how bioinformatics is transforming piRNA research:

1. Identification and Annotation

The discovery of piRNAs relies on next-generation sequencing (NGS) data. Bioinformatics tools such as piRNApredictor and Piano identify piRNA clusters and predict potential targets. Databases like piRBase and piRNAdb curate information about known piRNAs, their sequences, and associated proteins.

2. Mapping and Alignment

piRNAs often originate from repetitive regions, making their alignment challenging. Tools like Bowtie and STAR handle the unique mapping requirements of piRNAs, enabling accurate identification of piRNA clusters in genomes.

3. Functional Analysis

Bioinformatics approaches predict piRNA functions by analyzing their interactions with transposons, genes, and epigenetic marks. Algorithms such as TargetFinder and RIblast explore piRNA-mRNA interactions, shedding light on regulatory networks.

4. Evolutionary Studies

piRNAs are evolutionarily diverse, reflecting their roles in species-specific genomic defense. Comparative genomics tools help trace the evolution of piRNA clusters and their associated PIWI proteins across species.

5. Epigenomic Insights

piRNAs are key players in epigenetic regulation. Bioinformatics pipelines integrate piRNA data with chromatin immunoprecipitation sequencing (ChIP-seq) and DNA methylation data to uncover their role in shaping the epigenome.

Case Study: piRNAs in Germline Integrity

One of the hallmark functions of piRNAs is the suppression of transposable elements in the germline. For example, in Drosophila melanogaster, piRNAs target retrotransposons like gypsy and copia. Bioinformatics analyses revealed that these piRNAs guide PIWI proteins to transposon-derived RNA, ensuring genome stability during gametogenesis.

Clinical Relevance of piRNAs

Recent studies suggest that piRNAs may serve as biomarkers for diseases such as cancer, infertility, and neurodegenerative disorders. For instance:

Cancer: Dysregulated piRNA expression has been linked to tumorigenesis, making them potential targets for cancer therapies.
Infertility: Aberrant piRNA pathways are implicated in male infertility due to their role in spermatogenesis.
Neurodegeneration: piRNAs may regulate neuronal gene expression, highlighting their potential in neurological research.

Future Directions

The integration of bioinformatics with emerging technologies offers exciting opportunities for piRNA research:

Single-Cell Sequencing: Unveiling cell-specific piRNA expression and function.
Machine Learning: Predicting piRNA functions and targets with greater accuracy.
CRISPR-Based Tools: Editing piRNA clusters to explore their roles in vivo.

Conclusion

piRNAs are the unsung guardians of the genome, safeguarding genetic material from transposable elements and contributing to gene regulation and epigenetic programming. Bioinformatics has opened the floodgates of discovery, unraveling the complexities of piRNAs and their myriad roles in biology and disease.

As we continue to decode the piRNA landscape, these small RNAs promise to unveil big secrets about genome stability, evolution, and human health, cementing their place as a fascinating frontier in molecular biology.

swgis v2.0 : a seqword genomic island sniffer

Abhimanyu Singh — Thu, 01 Nov 2018 12:35:52 -0500

swgis v2.0 is the modified version of the seqword genomic island sniffer. this version is specifically optimized for predicting genomic islands in eukaryotic genomes. swgis v2.0 was tested on several eukaryotic species of different lineages. all identified genomic islands were deposited in the eugi database.

download swgis v2.0

Address of the bookmark: http://eugi.bi.up.ac.za/eugi_download_swgis.php

BLAST+ 2.11.0 release is now available on FTP site !

Jit — Sat, 14 Nov 2020 21:37:53 -0600

BLAST+ 2.11.0 release is now available from our FTP site. The main advance is the ability to provide usage reports to NCBI to help us improve BLAST. This information is limited to the name of the BLAST program, some basic database metadata, a few BLAST parameters, as well the number and total size of your queries. See the Privacy document for more details on the information we collect, how we will use it, and how you can opt-out of reporting.

Another new feature allows threading by query batch in rpsblast/rpstblastn. Enabling this option using -m t provides more efficient searching with large numbers of queries. See release notes for details on more improvements and bug fixes.

Useful Links
------------
NCBI Insights: https://ncbiinsights.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2020/11/12/blast-2-11-0/

BLAST FTP: https://go.usa.gov/x7QQ3
Privacy document: https://go.usa.gov/x7QQe
Release notes: https://go.usa.gov/x7Qnv

Getting Started with Nextflow

LEGE — Sat, 18 Sep 2021 01:28:41 -0500

Introduction to Bioinformatics workflows with Nextflow and nf-core

Getting Started with Nextflow

Objectives Understand

What a workflow management system is.

Understand the benefits of using a workflow management system.

Explain the benefits of using Nextflow as part of your bioinformatics workflow.

Explain the components of a Nextflow script.

Run a Nextflow script.

Introduction to Bioinformatics workflows with Nextflow and nf-core

Getting Started with Nextflow

Address of the bookmark: https://carpentries-incubator.github.io/workflows-nextflow/aio/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

Merfin: improved variant filtering, assembly evaluation and polishing via k-mer validation

Neel — Sun, 03 Apr 2022 20:35:19 -0500

Merfin, a k-mer based variant-filtering algorithm for improved accuracy in genotyping and genome assembly polishing. Merfin evaluates each variant based on the expected k-mer multiplicity in the reads, independently of the quality of the read alignment and variant caller’s internal score. Merfin increased the precision of genotyped calls in several benchmarks, improved consensus accuracy and reduced frameshift errors when applied to human and nonhuman assemblies built from Pacific Biosciences HiFi and continuous long reads or Oxford Nanopore reads, including the first complete human genome. Moreover, we introduce assembly quality and completeness metrics that account for the expected genomic copy numbers.

More at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41592-022-01445-y

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/arangrhie/merfin

Evaluation of genome assembly software based on long reads

BioStar — Fri, 01 Feb 2019 11:55:54 -0600

TGS technologies have been used to produce highly accurate de novo assemblies of hundreds of microbial genomes and highly contiguous reconstructions of many dozens of plant and animal genomes, enabling new insights into evolution and sequence diversity. They have also been applied to resequencing analyses, to create detailed maps of structural variations in many species. Also, these new technologies have been used to fill in many of the gaps in the human reference genome.

In this report, we compare and evaluate several genome assembly software based on TSG technology. The experimentation has been performed on 4 reference genomes and the results evaluated with the QUAST software. The 11 software that have been evaluated are: Celera Assembler , Falcon , Miniasm, Newbler , SGA Assembler, Smartdenovo, Abruijn, Ra, DBG2OLC, Spades and Cerulean. The first 8 software use only long reads, while the 3 last software can merge long and short reads

What Junk DNA? It’s an Operating System

Rahul Agarwal — Mon, 19 Aug 2013 15:24:26 -0500

The report adds to growing experimental support for the idea that all that extra stuff in the human genes, once referred to as “junk DNA,” is more than functionless, space-filling material that happens to make up nearly 98% of the genome. The paper adds to a growing body of knowledge establishing a considerable role for this material in the regulation of gene expression and its potential role in human disease.

Address of the bookmark: http://www.genengnews.com/keywordsandtools/print/3/32115/