BOL: Related items

maftools

Surabhi Chaudhary — Fri, 17 Dec 2021 03:18:28 -0600

With advances in Cancer Genomics, Mutation Annotation Format (MAF) is being widely accepted and used to store somatic variants detected. The Cancer Genome Atlas Project has sequenced over 30 different cancers with sample size of each cancer type being over 200. Resulting data consisting of somatic variants are stored in the form of Mutation Annotation Format. This package attempts to summarize, analyze, annotate and visualize MAF files in an efficient manner from either TCGA sources or any in-house studies as long as the data is in MAF format.

https://www.bioconductor.org/packages/devel/bioc/vignettes/maftools/inst/doc/maftools.html

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/PoisonAlien/maftools

Short-read assembly using Spades !

Abhimanyu Singh — Mon, 31 Jan 2022 07:18:16 -0600

If we only had Illumina reads, we could also assemble these using the tool Spades.

You can try this here, or try it later on your own data.

Get data

We will use the same Illumina data as we used above:

illumina_R1.fastq.gz: the Illumina forward reads
illumina_R2.fastq.gz: the Illumina reverse reads

Assemble

Run Spades:

spades.py -1 illumina_R1.fastq.gz -2 illumina_R2.fastq.gz --careful --cov-cutoff auto -o spades_assembly_all_illumina

-1 is input file of forward reads
-2 is input file of reverse reads
--careful minimizes mismatches and short indels
--cov-cutoff auto computes the coverage threshold (rather than the default setting, “off”)
-o is the output directory

Results

Move into the output directory and look at the contigs:

infoseq contigs.fasta

Smudgeplot: Inference of ploidy and heterozygosity structure using whole genome sequencing data

Neel — Fri, 25 Feb 2022 04:42:09 -0600

This tool extracts heterozygous kmer pairs from kmer count databases and performs gymnastics with them. We are able to disentangle genome structure by comparing the sum of kmer pair coverages (CovA + CovB) to their relative coverage (CovB / (CovA + CovB)). Such an approach also allows us to analyze obscure genomes with duplications, various ploidy levels, etc.

Smudgeplots are computed from raw or even better from trimmed reads and show the haplotype structure using heterozygous kmer pairs. For example:

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/KamilSJaron/smudgeplot

GenomeQC: a quality assessment tool for genome assemblies and gene structure annotations

Neel — Thu, 19 May 2022 04:29:05 -0500

The GenomeQC web application is implemented in R/Shiny version 1.5.9 and Python 3.6 and is freely available at https://genomeqc.maizegdb.org/ under the GPL license. All source code and a containerized version of the GenomeQC pipeline is available in the GitHub repository https://github.com/HuffordLab/GenomeQC.

https://bmcgenomics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12864-020-6568-2

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/HuffordLab/GenomeQC

Bioinformatics tools for genome assembly !

BioStar — Mon, 24 Jul 2023 07:04:26 -0500

There are numerous genome assembly tools available, each with its strengths and weaknesses. Here is a list of some widely used genome assembly tools as of my last update in September 2021:

SPAdes: An assembler specifically designed for single-cell and multi-cell bacterial genomes, as well as small eukaryotic genomes.
ABySS: A parallelized assembler for large genomes that uses de Bruijn graphs.
Velvet: Another de Bruijn graph-based assembler optimized for short-read sequencing data.
SOAPdenovo: A de Bruijn graph-based assembler designed for short reads, widely used for assembling large and complex genomes.
MaSuRCA: A hybrid assembler that combines data from multiple sequencing technologies, such as Illumina and PacBio.
Canu: A long-read assembler optimized for PacBio and Oxford Nanopore sequencing data.
Flye: A long-read assembler suitable for bacterial and small eukaryotic genomes.
SMARTdenovo: An assembler designed for long reads, particularly suited for PacBio data.
SPAdes Long Read (SPAdesLR): An extension of SPAdes for long-read data, such as those from PacBio or Nanopore.
Minia: An assembler optimized for low memory consumption, suitable for small and medium-sized genomes.
Unicycler: A hybrid assembler that combines short and long reads for circular bacterial genome assembly.
wtdbg2: A de Bruijn graph assembler for long reads, efficient for very large genomes.
Shasta: A long-read assembler that uses the Overlap-Layout-Consensus approach, suitable for PacBio and Nanopore data.
Sparc: An assembler designed to handle noisy long reads from Nanopore sequencing.
CANA: An assembler for metagenomic data, particularly for complex and diverse microbial communities.
Ra Assembler: A metagenome assembler for long reads, designed for highly complex metagenomic samples.

Please note that the field of bioinformatics is constantly evolving, and new assembly tools may have emerged since my last update. Additionally, the performance of these tools can vary depending on the characteristics of the sequencing data and the genome being assembled. When selecting an assembly tool, consider the specific requirements of your project, the available data types, and the computational resources at your disposal. Always refer to the respective tool's documentation and publications for the most up-to-date information and recommendations.

bacLIFE: an automated genome mining tool for identification of lifestyle associated genes

BioStar — Fri, 15 Mar 2024 04:59:14 -0500

bacLIFE is a streamlined computational workflow that annotates bacterial genomes and performs large-scale comparative genomics to predict bacterial lifestyles and to pinpoint candidate genes, denominated lifestyle-associated genes (LAGs), and biosynthetic gene clusters associated with each lifestyle detected. This whole process is divided into different modules:

Clustering module Predicts, clusters and annotates the genes of every input genome
Lifestyle prediction Employs a machine learning model to forecast bacterial lifestyle or other specified metadata
Analitical module (Shiny app) Results from the previous modules are embedded in a user-friendly interface for comprehensive and interactive comparative genomics.

You can find the complete wiki here [https://github.com/Carrion-lab/bacLIFE/wiki/bacLIFE-wiki]

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/Carrion-lab/bacLIFE

The Day We Began Reading the DNA of the World

Jitendra Narayan — Sat, 05 Sep 2026 01:43:21 -0500

Picture waking up and knowing that in one lab, a scientist is reading the DNA of a whale. In another, a team is sequencing a rare plant. Meanwhile, researchers in India are decoding the genomes of different human populations.

Many organisms. Many countries. All share one remarkable goal: to understand the genetic story of life.

DNA is nature's instruction manual, written with just four letters: A, T, C, and G. For years, scientists could only read small sections of this huge book. Now, new sequencing technology lets us read entire genomes like never before.

One of the most ambitious projects is the Earth BioGenome Project (EBP). Its goal is to create reference genomes for about 1.5 million known eukaryotic species. This project links genome research across continents, species, and scientific fields.

But this story goes beyond just animals and plants.

A New Chapter in Human Genomics

Large human genome projects are changing how we understand our own genetic diversity.

India's GenomeIndia project has sequenced thousands of people from different populations. This work is uncovering genetic variation that global databases have often missed.

Similar population-scale effSimilar large-scale projects are happening worldwide. The All of Us Research Program in the United States, Europe's 1+ Million Genomes initiative, South Korea's national genomic data program, and projects in Saudi Arabia, Australia, and Singapore are all building huge genomic resources.collect DNA.

The real goal is to link genomes with health, disease, and other biological information. This creates a base for more accurate research and, in time, more personalized medicine.

A Race Against Time

There is also an important twist.

We are sequencing Earth's biodiversity even as many species face growing environmental threats.

A genome alone cannot save a species, but it does keep important information about its biology, evolution, and genetic diversity. This knowledge helps scientists understand risks, guide conservation, and find traits that could help agriculture or medicine.

Projects like the Darwin Tree of Life, which studies species in Britain and Ireland, and the African BioGenome Project, which is growing genomics work across Africa, are key parts of this worldwide effort.

Projects to Watch

Earth BioGenome Project (EBP) - A global effort to sequence and annotate roughly 1.5 million known eukaryotic species and create a comprehensive reference library of Earth's biodiversity.
Vertebrate Genomes Project (VGP) - Focuses on producing high-quality reference genomes for vertebrate species, providing a major foundation for the wider Tree of Life.
Darwin Tree of Life - A UK and Ireland initiative aiming to sequence approximately 70,000 species, creating a detailed genomic map of regional biodiversity.
African BioGenome Project (AfricaBP) - A pan-African initiative focused on sequencing Africa's biodiversity while strengthening genomics and bioinformatics capacity across the continent.
European Reference Genome Atlas (ERGA) - A European effort to generate high-quality reference genomes for Europe's biodiversity and connect national sequencing efforts.
Canada BioGenome Project - Building reference genomes for Canadian biodiversity, supporting conservation, research and the study of ecosystems.
California Conservation Genomics Project - Uses genomics to understand and protect California's biodiversity and help inform conservation decisions.
Bat1K - An ambitious global effort to sequence the genomes of all known bat species, helping scientists study their evolution, longevity, immunity and unique biology.
Bird 10,000 (B10K) - A global project aiming to create genome resources covering the world's bird diversity and reconstruct avian evolutionary history.
Global Invertebrate Genomics Alliance (GIGA) - Builds genomic resources for the enormous and genetically diverse world of invertebrates.
GenomeIndia - India's national human-genome initiative, designed to capture the country's extraordinary population diversity and create a reference resource for Indian genomics.
All of Us Research Program - A US national research program combining genomic information with health and lifestyle data at population scale.
1+ Million Genomes / Genome of Europe - A European effort to enable secure, cross-border use of genomic and health data and develop genome-scale resources involving more than one million people.
Korea National Integrated Bio Big Data Project - South Korea's large-scale national effort combining genomic and health information from a very large population cohort.
Saudi Genome Program - A national genomics initiative focused on genetic diseases, population genomics and precision medicine in Saudi Arabia.
Australian Genomics / Genomics Health Futures Mission - Australia's growing investment in genomic medicine, rare disease research and population-scale health genomics.

The Library of Life

The fuThe future of genomics is not just about sequencing one genome at a time. Now, it is about creating a worldwide network of genomes—human and non-human, individual and species—linked by powerful databases and advanced computational tools.ine a library without shelves.

In this library, the books are genomes. The pages are made of DNA. Scientists and machines are the readers. And this library is still being written. Each genome sequenced today adds a new page to the story of life and helps us better understand our place in it.

Is reference genome necessary for gene expression study in transcriptome sequencing or for variant discovery in genome sequencing?

Rahul Agarwal — Wed, 17 Jul 2013 15:25:09 -0500

Like in case of plant genomes where nature of genome is too complex and huge in size to accomplish complete de novo assembly by current sequencing technology. What would be alternate solution? Can we live in reference free world?

320000 viruses in mammals yet to sequenced in future!!!

Rahul Agarwal — Tue, 03 Sep 2013 08:35:30 -0500

With current biological technique improvements, finally it is now possible to look at millions of unknown viruses at genomic level and understand the mechanism. According to available data, close to 70 per cent of emerging viral diseases such as HIV/AIDS, West Nile, Ebola, SARS, and influenza, are zoonoses - infections of animals that cross into humans.

To address the challenges of describing and estimating virodiversity, a team of investigators from Center for Infection and Immunity (CII) and EcoHealth Alliance began in jungles of Bangladesh - home to the flying fox.

Reference:

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/news-by-industry/et-cetera/mammals-harbour-at-least-320000-new-viruses/articleshow/22253268.cms

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23932400

Tools to detect synteny blocks regions among multiple genomes

Jitendra Narayan — Mon, 16 Sep 2013 17:12:02 -0500

The synteny block (which etymologically means “on the same ribbon”) is a collection of contiguous genes located on the same chromosome. These block regions have mostly been preserved by genome rearrangements, and so synteny blocks from two related species (e.g., humans and mice) will be roughly similar but flipped around on the respective genomes. Ovcharenko et. al. define it as ‘any conserved sequence blocks, regardless of whether it encompasses multiple genes, an area containing single genes, or areas devoid of known genes to be considers as synteny block as long as there is conservation at the sequence level. Today, however, biologists usually refer to synteny as the conservation of blocks of order within two sets of chromosomes that are being compared with each other. This concept can also be referred to as shared synteny. The NHBLI/NCBI Glossary define synteny as “Two genes which occur on the same chromosome are syntenic; however, syntenic genes may or may not be "linked."

Now a day, geneticists have developed a language of their own. They are pouring lots of money and energy to read the entire genomic text and understand the gods own code ATGC. It is somewhat fascinating, not only for geneticist but also for non-biologist to know that there are several conserved blocks in genome which remain conserved over hundreds of millions of years. There have been several researches on conserved blocks and non-conserved regions to understand the mechanism and importance of all these regions (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2675965/). The finding indicates conservation and rearrangements of certain evolutionary important genes play an important role in evolution/adaptive changes (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v491/n7424/abs/nature11622.html https://academic.oup.com/gbe/article/8/8/2442/2198198/Novel-Insights-into-Chromosome-Evolution-in-Birds , http://science.sciencemag.org/content/346/6215/1311).

But the puzzle remains open, how to correctly define the synteny (presence of two or more genes on the same chromosome) and conserved synteny (presence of two or more genes on chromosome of each of the two species) on several genomes.

Figure: Image generated with Evolution Highway (EH) tool http://eh-demo.ncsa.illinois.edu/

Keeping the new approach to define conserved synteny in mind there have been various algorithms developed to identify the conserved homologous synteny blocks (HSB) amongst species. Some of them which were commonly used for synteny detections are:

SyntenyTracker ( http://www-app.igb.uiuc.edu/labs/lewin/donthu/Synteny_assign/html/),

SyntenyTracker was shown to be an efficient and accurate automated tool for defining HSBs using datasets that may contain minor errors resulting from limitations in map construction methodologies.

CoGe (http://genomevolution.org/CoGe/SynFind.pl )

Satsuma (http://evomics.org/learning/genomics/satsuma/)

Cinteny (http://cinteny.cchmc.org/) ,

Cinteny server can be used for finding regions syntenic across multiple genomes and measuring the extent of genome rearrangement using reversal distance as a measure.

OrthoCluster (http://krono.act.uji.es/noticias/orthocluster-a-new-tool-for-mining-syntenic-blocks)

A new tool for mining syntenic blocks in comparative genomics

SynMap (http://genomevolution.org/wiki/index.php/SynMap),

SyMAP (http://www.symapdb.org/)

SyMAP (Synteny Mapping and Analysis Program) v4.0 is an automated system for identifying and displaying genome synteny alignments. The genomes may be represented by sequenced chromosomes (pseudomolecules), by draft sequence contigs, or by FPC physical maps (with BAC-end or marker sequence).

http://genomevolution.org/CoGe/SynMap.pl

RegionMiner (http://www.genomatix.de/online_help/help_regionminer/orthologous.html)

SyntenyMiner is being developed as an application to visualize and interrogate comparisons among multiple complete genome sequences. http://syntenyminer.sourceforge.net/

AutoGRAPH ( http://autograph.genouest.org/),

AutoGRAPH is an integrated web server for multi-species comparative genomic analysis. It is designed for constructing and visualizing synteny maps between two or three species, determination and display of macrosynteny and microsynteny relationships among species, and for highlighting evolutionary breakpoints.

SynChro(http://www.lgm.upmc.fr/CHROnicle/SynChro.html)

SynChro is a tool designed to define conserved synteny blocks. It reconstructs synteny blocks between pairwise comparison of multiple genomes. The reconstructed synteny blocks may overlap each other, be included in one another or duplicated due to micro-rearrangements.

SyntenyView ( http://www.cbs.dtu.dk/dtucourse/cookbooks/nikob/exercises/gf1_output_5.html),

Ensembl 'SyntenyView' shows conservation of large-scale gene order between species pairs. A brief summary of the calculation method appears at the bottom of this help page. The left of a 'SyntenyView' page displays a diagram of chromosomes with blocks of conserved synteny. The right of a page shows homology matches between individual genes within syntenic blocks.

SynBrowse ( http://www.synbrowse.org/),

SynBrowse (Synteny Browser) is a generic sequence comparison tool for visualizing genome alignments both within and between species. It is intended to help scientists study and analyze synteny, homologous genes and other conserved elements between sequences. This software is useful in studying genome duplication and evolution. It can also aid in identifying uncharacterized genes, putative regulatory elements and novel structural features of study species by comparing to a well annotated reference sequence, thus enabling genome curators to refine and edit annotations of species that have incomplete genome annotations.

Sibelia (http://arxiv.org/abs/1307.7941).

A comparative genomic tool: It assists biologists in analysing the genomic variations that correlate with pathogens, or the genomic changes that help microorganisms adapt in different environments. Sibelia will also be helpful for the evolutionary and genome rearrangement studies for multiple strains of microorganisms.

GSV (http://cas-bioinfo.cas.unt.edu/gsv/homepage.php)

Genome Synteny Viewer allows users to upload files which contain synteny regions between two or more genomes and interactively visualize the synteny between them. GSV also allows users to upload annotation files to visualize annotated regions in addition to synteny regions.

MicroSyn (http://www.lgm.upmc.fr/CHROnicle/SynChro.html)

MicroSyn software as a means of detecting microsynteny in adjacent genomic regions surrounding genes in gene families. MicroSyn searches for conserved, flanking colinear homologous gene pairs between two genomic fragments to determine the relationship between two members in a gene family.

SynOrth (http://synorth.genereg.net/)

Synorth [s n ôrth], named in combination of "synteny" and "ortholog", is designed for the study of evolutionary changes of genomic regulatory blocks (GRBs) in vertebrate genomes, and especially the changes following the whole-genome duplication in teleost fish, by tracing the ortholog genes gain and loss in ancient synteny blocks.

SyDiG (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21441096)

Uncovering Synteny in Distant Genomes.

MapSynteny (http://www.automatizacionysistemas.com/download.html)

MapSynteny is a macro in MS Excel® able to create images to show the relationship between genetic maps and large sequences (scaffolds, chromosomes, BACs, etc.). Based on tab – delimited BLAST results and some formulas, a suitable image of syntenic relationships or physical mapping can be obtained. http://www.automatizacionysistemas.com/Poster_MapSynteny.pdf

One of the best synteny tutorial for beginer @ http://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/synteny-inferring-ancestral-genomes-44022

Reference:

http://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/synteny-inferring-ancestral-genomes-44022

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v491/n7424/full/nature11622.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synteny

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2675965/