BOL: Related items

Mesquite: A modular system for evolutionary analysis

Rahul Nayak — Tue, 13 Mar 2018 06:54:32 -0500

Mesquite is modular, extendible software for evolutionary biology, designed to help biologists organize and analyze comparative data about organisms. Its emphasis is on phylogenetic analysis, but some of its modules concern population genetics, while others do non-phylogenetic multivariate analysis. Because it is modular, the analyses available depend on the modules installed.

https://github.com/MesquiteProject/MesquiteCore

Address of the bookmark: http://mesquiteproject.org/

snakepipes: A toolkit based on snakemake and python for analysis of NGS data

Jit — Thu, 30 May 2019 04:06:13 -0500

snakePipes are flexible and powerful workflows built using snakemake that simplify the analysis of NGS data.

DNA-mapping*
ChIP-seq*
RNA-seq*
ATAC-seq*
scRNA-seq
Hi-C
Whole Genome Bisulfite Seq/WGBS

(*Also available in "allele-specific" mode)

snakePipes can be installed via conda :

'conda install -c mpi-ie -c bioconda -c conda-forge snakePipes'.

Source code (https://github.com/maxplanck-ie/snakepipes) and documentation (https://snakepipes.readthedocs.io/en/latest/) are available online.

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/maxplanck-ie/snakepipes

Dahak: benchmarking and containerization of tools for analysis of complex non-clinical metagenomes.

BioStar — Thu, 09 Apr 2020 04:56:09 -0500

Dahak is a software suite that integrates state-of-the-art open source tools for metagenomic analyses. Tools in the dahak software suite will perform various steps in metagenomic analysis workflows including data pre-processing, metagenome assembly, taxonomic and functional classification, genome binning, and gene assignment. We aim to deliver the analytical framework as a robust and reliable containerized workflow system, which will be free from dependency, installation, and execution problems typically associated with other open-source bioinformatics solutions. This will maximize the transparency, data provenance (i.e., the process of tracing the origins of data and its movement through the workflow), and reproducibility.

More at https://dahak-metagenomics.github.io/dahak/

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/dahak-metagenomics/dahak

DnaSP: DNA Sequence Polymorphism, is a software package for the analysis of DNA polymorphisms

Neel — Wed, 25 Nov 2020 19:51:38 -0600

DnaSP, DNA Sequence Polymorphism, is a software package for the analysis of DNA polymorphisms using data from a single locus (a multiple sequence aligned -MSA data), or from several loci (a Multiple-MSA data, such as formats generated by some assembler RAD-seq software). DnaSP can estimate several measures of DNA sequence variation within and between populations in noncoding, synonymous or nonsynonymous sites, or in various sorts of codon positions), as well as linkage disequilibrium, recombination, gene flow and gene conversion parameters.

Address of the bookmark: http://www.ub.edu/dnasp/

GenomeTools: The versatile open source genome analysis software

Neel — Wed, 02 Feb 2022 04:00:21 -0600

The GenomeTools genome analysis system is a free collection of bioinformatics tools (in the realm of genome informatics) combined into a single binary named gt. It is based on a C library named “libgenometools” which consists of several modules.

If you are interested in gene prediction, have a look at GenomeThreader.

http://genometools.org/pub/

Address of the bookmark: http://genometools.org/

Calculate the significance of the difference between two trends

BioStar — Tue, 14 Mar 2023 05:41:53 -0500

To calculate the significance of the difference between two trends, you can use a statistical test such as a t-test or ANOVA (analysis of variance). Here are the general steps to follow:

Define your null hypothesis (H0) and alternative hypothesis (H1). For example, H0 might be that there is no significant difference between the two trends, while H1 might be that there is a significant difference.
Collect data on the two trends. Make sure that the data is independent, normally distributed, and has equal variances.
Calculate the means and standard deviations of each trend.
Calculate the test statistic using a t-test or ANOVA. The test statistic will depend on the specific test you choose, but it will generally compare the difference in means between the two trends to the variability within each trend.
Determine the p-value associated with the test statistic. The p-value represents the probability of obtaining a test statistic as extreme as the one you calculated, assuming that the null hypothesis is true.
Compare the p-value to your chosen significance level (usually 0.05 or 0.01). If the p-value is less than or equal to the significance level, reject the null hypothesis and conclude that there is a significant difference between the two trends. If the p-value is greater than the significance level, fail to reject the null hypothesis and conclude that there is not enough evidence to support a significant difference.

It's important to note that the specific details of each step will depend on the type of test you choose and the software you use to perform the analysis.

The most common methods for comparing means include:

Methods	R function	Description
T-test	t.test()	Compare two groups (parametric)
Wilcoxon test	wilcox.test()	Compare two groups (non-parametric)
ANOVA	aov() or anova()	Compare multiple groups (parametric)
Kruskal-Wallis	kruskal.test()	Compare multiple groups (non-parametric)

Data Visualization in Bioinformatics: Useful and Eye-Catching Plots for Data Analysis

LEGE — Sat, 14 Dec 2024 12:41:53 -0600

Data visualization is a cornerstone of bioinformatics, enabling researchers to interpret complex datasets effectively. With a plethora of data types—genomic sequences, expression profiles, protein interactions, and more—the right visualizations can make or break an analysis. This blog highlights some of the most useful and visually compelling plots for bioinformatics data analysis, along with tools to create them.

1. Heatmaps: Exploring Patterns in High-Dimensional Data

Heatmaps are a go-to visualization for representing high-dimensional datasets, such as gene expression or metabolomics data. They use color gradients to display data intensity, making patterns and clusters easily detectable.

Applications: Gene expression analysis, pathway enrichment, methylation studies.
Tools: Seaborn (Python), ComplexHeatmap (R), Morpheus (web-based).

Tip: Add dendrograms to visualize clustering of rows and columns for hierarchical relationships.

2. Volcano Plots: Highlighting Differential Features

Volcano plots are indispensable for identifying significantly differentially expressed genes or proteins. They plot the log2 fold change against –log10(p-value), making it easy to spot statistically significant changes.

Applications: RNA-seq, proteomics, and metabolomics.
Tools: ggplot2 (R), EnhancedVolcano (R), Plotly (Python).

Tip: Use color to highlight significant features and label key genes or proteins.

3. PCA Plots: Reducing Complexity with Principal Component Analysis

Principal Component Analysis (PCA) plots are used to reduce dimensionality and uncover trends or clusters in data. They provide insights into sample variability and grouping.

Applications: Transcriptomics, metabolomics, microbiome studies.
Tools: scikit-learn + Matplotlib (Python), prcomp (R), ClustVis (web-based).

Tip: Annotate clusters with metadata to enhance interpretability.

4. Manhattan Plots: Genome-Wide Association Studies

Manhattan plots visualize p-values across the genome, making it easy to identify significant associations in genome-wide studies. They resemble city skylines, with the highest peaks indicating loci of interest.

Applications: GWAS, QTL mapping.
Tools: qqman (R), Matplotlib (Python).

Tip: Use alternating colors for chromosomes and highlight significant SNPs for clarity.

5. Circular Plots (Circos): Visualizing Genomic Relationships

Circular plots are ideal for visualizing relationships across the genome, such as structural variations, gene duplications, or synteny.

Applications: Comparative genomics, structural variation studies.
Tools: Circos (standalone), Rcircos (R), pyCircos (Python).

Tip: Keep the plot clean and avoid overcrowding to maintain readability.

6. Sankey Diagrams: Tracking Data Flows

Sankey diagrams visualize flows or relationships between categories, often used to track changes in gene expression or pathway enrichment across conditions.

Applications: Pathway analysis, gene set enrichment analysis.
Tools: Plotly (Python), networkD3 (R).

Tip: Use gradients or distinct colors to highlight key transitions.

7. Network Graphs: Mapping Interactions

Network graphs represent relationships between entities, such as protein-protein interactions or gene regulatory networks. Nodes represent entities, and edges represent relationships.

Applications: Systems biology, interactomics.
Tools: Cytoscape (standalone), igraph (R), NetworkX (Python).

Tip: Use edge thickness or node size to represent interaction strength or centrality.

8. Violin Plots: Visualizing Data Distribution

Violin plots combine a boxplot with a density plot, showing the distribution and variability of data.

Applications: Single-cell RNA-seq, quantitative trait analysis.
Tools: Seaborn (Python), ggplot2 (R).

Tip: Split violins by groups for side-by-side comparisons.

9. Time-Series Plots: Monitoring Changes Over Time

Time-series plots display changes in variables across time points, useful for tracking gene expression dynamics or metabolic fluxes.

Applications: Time-course experiments, cell cycle studies.
Tools: Matplotlib (Python), ggplot2 (R).

Tip: Smooth the data to highlight trends while avoiding overfitting.

10. Genome Tracks: Visualizing Genomic Features

Genome tracks display multiple layers of genomic data, such as gene annotations, sequencing coverage, and epigenetic marks.

Applications: ChIP-seq, ATAC-seq, whole-genome sequencing.
Tools: IGV (standalone), pyGenomeTracks (Python).

Tip: Stack related tracks for direct comparisons.

11. UpSet Plots: Visualizing Set Intersections

UpSet plots are a powerful alternative to Venn diagrams for visualizing intersections between multiple datasets.

Applications: Overlap analysis for gene sets, pathways, or variants.
Tools: UpSetR (R), ComplexUpset (Python).

Tip: Use bar plots to represent the size of each intersection for added clarity.

12. Ridge Plots: Comparing Distributions

Ridge plots visualize the distributions of multiple datasets, stacked for easy comparison.

Applications: Transcriptomics, single-cell RNA-seq.
Tools: ggridges (R), Matplotlib (Python).

Tip: Use transparency and consistent scaling for better readability.

13. Chord Diagrams: Visualizing Connections Between Groups

Chord diagrams illustrate relationships between categories, such as shared genes between pathways or overlaps in regulatory elements.

Applications: Pathway overlap, synteny, co-expression networks.
Tools: Circlize (R), Holoviews (Python).

Tip: Use distinct colors for each group to emphasize relationships.

14. Treemaps: Hierarchical Data Representation

Treemaps visualize hierarchical data as nested rectangles, with area proportional to data size.

Applications: Ontology enrichment, pathway analysis.
Tools: Treemapify (R), Plotly (Python).

Tip: Use colors to represent additional variables, like significance or enrichment scores.

15. T-SNE/UMAP Plots: Dimensionality Reduction for Clustering

T-SNE and UMAP plots are great for visualizing high-dimensional data in two dimensions while preserving local or global structure.

Applications: Single-cell transcriptomics, clustering analyses.
Tools: scikit-learn (Python), Seurat (R).

Tip: Combine with metadata annotations for better cluster interpretation.

Bringing It All Together

The choice of visualization can significantly impact the insights gained from bioinformatics data. By selecting plots tailored to your data type and analysis goals, you can effectively communicate your findings and make your research more impactful. Whether you’re a seasoned bioinformatician or a beginner, mastering these visualizations will elevate your analyses and presentations.

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/

RNA Sequencing Helps Identify Functional Variants from GWAS

Andaleeb — Fri, 22 Nov 2013 21:33:33 -0600

For Alzheimer’s and other complex disorders, mining the genome for disease-associated variants is no longer the obstacle. The challenge nowadays is figuring out how the identified loci relate to disease. As reported last month in Nature and its associated journals, advances in high-throughput RNA sequencing are providing new tools for understanding how disease loci influence gene expression—a starting point for understanding their connection to pathogenesis.

Address of the bookmark: http://schizophreniaforum.org/new/detail.asp?id=1953

Pathway Analysis

Rahul Agarwal — Fri, 03 Oct 2014 08:51:13 -0500

Pathway Analysis is usually performed with aim to enrich the genes with their functional information and reveal the underlying biological mechanisms pursue by genes. Pathway Analysis is not only limited to what biological pathways a particular set of expressed genes follow but also to disclose the relationships between these genes. With availability of more genomics, transcriptomics and proteomics data, interactions between genes involve in multiple pathways become more clear and also relationships between the genes, their transcripts, and their gene products. However, existing tools and dbs mainly based on knowledge driven approach in which pathways will be identified by finding the correlation between the information in one of the pathway knowledge databases (KEGG,Reactome,Panther,BioCarta, Panther,GO,NCI,WikiPathways,etc) and gene expression result for a specific conditions for instance tumor, obesity , cold resistant crops/plants, etc.

Introductory Articles/ppt/sources:

http://www.ploscompbiol.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pcbi.1002375

http://bioinformatics.mdanderson.org/MicroarrayCourse/Lectures09/Pathway%20Analysis.pdf

http://gettinggeneticsdone.blogspot.de/2012/03/pathway-analysis-for-high-throughput.html

http://davetang.org/muse/tag/pathway/

https://www.biostars.org/p/42219/

http://bioinformatics.ca//files/public/Pathways_2014_Module4_v2.pdf

http://bioinformatics.ca//files/public/Pathways_2014_Module2.pdf

Impotant Database and Tools:

GeneMANIA, Cytoscape, IPA and Metacore (Commerical ), Pathway Commons, Reactome ,Panther, BioCyc, WikiPathways, Pathvisio, KEGG, NCI, Stringdb, Amigo, WebGestalt ,ConsensusPathDB ,GSEA,Blast2go

Popular R based tools:

Reactome.db, ReactomePA, ClusterProfiler, Gage, SPIA, topGO, Pathview,DOSE,GOStat

More:

http://www.bioconductor.org/help/search/index.html?q=Enrichment+analysis+