scholarly journals Genome Graphs and the Evolution of Genome Inference

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benedict Paten ◽  
Adam M. Novak ◽  
Jordan M. Eizenga ◽  
Garrison Erik
Keyword(s):  
Reference Genome ◽  
Variant Calling ◽  
Modern Human ◽  
Human Biology ◽  
Scientific Achievement ◽  
Read Mapping ◽  
Human Genomics ◽  
Human Reference Genome ◽  
Human Genomes ◽  
Reference Bias

AbstractThe human reference genome is part of the foundation of modern human biology, and a monumental scientific achievement. However, because it excludes a great deal of common human variation, it introduces a pervasive reference bias into the field of human genomics. To reduce this bias, it makes sense to draw on representative collections of human genomes, brought together into reference cohorts. There are a number of techniques to represent and organize data gleaned from these cohorts, many using ideas implicitly or explicitly borrowed from graph based models. Here, we survey various projects underway to build and apply these graph based structures—which we collectively refer to as genome graphs—and discuss the improvements in read mapping, variant calling, and haplotype determination that genome graphs are expected to produce.

scholarly journals Genome Graphs

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam M. Novak ◽  
Glenn Hickey ◽  
Erik Garrison ◽  
Sean Blum ◽  
Abram Connelly ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Reference Genome ◽  
Human Genetics ◽  
De Novo ◽  
Variant Calling ◽  
Reference Structure ◽  
Read Mapping ◽  
Human Reference Genome ◽  
A Genome ◽  
Universal Reference ◽  
Genome Graph

AbstractThere is increasing recognition that a single, monoploid reference genome is a poor universal reference structure for human genetics, because it represents only a tiny fraction of human variation. Adding this missing variation results in a structure that can be described as a mathematical graph: a genome graph. We demonstrate that, in comparison to the existing reference genome (GRCh38), genome graphs can substantially improve the fractions of reads that map uniquely and perfectly. Furthermore, we show that this fundamental simplification of read mapping transforms the variant calling problem from one in which many non-reference variants must be discovered de-novo to one in which the vast majority of variants are simply re-identified within the graph. Using standard benchmarks as well as a novel reference-free evaluation, we show that a simplistic variant calling procedure on a genome graph can already call variants at least as well as, and in many cases better than, a state-of-the-art method on the linear human reference genome. We anticipate that graph-based references will supplant linear references in humans and in other applications where cohorts of sequenced individuals are available.

Systematic benchmark of ancient DNA read mapping

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adrien Oliva ◽  
Raymond Tobler ◽  
Alan Cooper ◽  
Bastien Llamas ◽  
Yassine Souilmi
Keyword(s):  
Ancient Dna ◽  
Dna Sequences ◽  
Population Genetic ◽  
Reference Genome ◽  
Population Data ◽  
Human Populations ◽  
Current Standard ◽  
Read Mapping ◽  
Reference Bias ◽  
The Impact

Abstract The current standard practice for assembling individual genomes involves mapping millions of short DNA sequences (also known as DNA ‘reads’) against a pre-constructed reference genome. Mapping vast amounts of short reads in a timely manner is a computationally challenging task that inevitably produces artefacts, including biases against alleles not found in the reference genome. This reference bias and other mapping artefacts are expected to be exacerbated in ancient DNA (aDNA) studies, which rely on the analysis of low quantities of damaged and very short DNA fragments (~30–80 bp). Nevertheless, the current gold-standard mapping strategies for aDNA studies have effectively remained unchanged for nearly a decade, during which time new software has emerged. In this study, we used simulated aDNA reads from three different human populations to benchmark the performance of 30 distinct mapping strategies implemented across four different read mapping software—BWA-aln, BWA-mem, NovoAlign and Bowtie2—and quantified the impact of reference bias in downstream population genetic analyses. We show that specific NovoAlign, BWA-aln and BWA-mem parameterizations achieve high mapping precision with low levels of reference bias, particularly after filtering out reads with low mapping qualities. However, unbiased NovoAlign results required the use of an IUPAC reference genome. While relevant only to aDNA projects where reference population data are available, the benefit of using an IUPAC reference demonstrates the value of incorporating population genetic information into the aDNA mapping process, echoing recent results based on graph genome representations.

scholarly journals Performance Assessment of Variant Calling Pipelines using Human Whole Exome Sequencing and Simulated data

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manojkumar Kumaran ◽  
Umadevi Subramanian ◽  
Bharanidharan Devarajan
Keyword(s):  
Exome Sequencing ◽  
Whole Exome Sequencing ◽  
Reference Genome ◽  
Variant Calling ◽  
Simulated Data ◽  
Variant Call ◽  
Human Reference Genome ◽  
Indel Detection ◽  
Whole Exome ◽  
Clinical Variants

AbstractThe whole exome sequencing (WES) is a time-consuming technology in the identification of clinical variants and it demands the accurate variant caller tools. The currently available tools compromise accuracy in predicting the specific types of variants. Thus, it is important to find out the possible combination of best aligner-variant caller tools for detecting SNVs and InDels separately. Moreover, many important aspects of InDel detection are not overlooked while comparing the performance of tools. One such aspect is the detection of InDels with respect to base pair length. To assess the performance of variant (especially InDels) caller in combination with different aligners, 20 automated pipelines were developed and evaluated using gold reference variant dataset (NA12878) from Genome in a Bottle (GiaB) consortium of human whole exome sequencing. Additionally, the simulated exome data from two human reference genome sequences (GRCh37 and GRCh38) were used to compare the performance of the pipelines. By analyzing various performance metrices, we observed that BWA and Novoalign aligners performed better with DeepVariant and SAMtools callers for detecting SNVs, and with DeepVariant and GATK for Indels. Altogether, DeepVariant with BWA and Novoalign performed best. Further, we showed that merging the top performing pipelines improved the accurate variant call set. Collectively, this study would help the investigators to effectively improve the sensitivity and accuracy in detecting specific variants.

scholarly journals Is it time to change the reference genome?

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Ballouz ◽  
Alexander Dobin ◽  
Jesse Gillis
Keyword(s):  
Reference Genome ◽  
Variant Calling ◽  
Type Specimen ◽  
Human Reference Genome ◽  
Current Reference

AbstractThe use of the human reference genome has shaped methods and data across modern genomics. This has offered many benefits while creating a few constraints. In the following piece, we outline the history, properties, and pitfalls of the current human reference genome. In a few illustrative analyses, we focus on its use for variant-calling, highlighting its nearness to a “type specimen”. We suggest that switching to a consensus reference offers important advantages over the current reference with few disadvantages.

scholarly journals Identifying, understanding, and correcting technical artifacts on the sex chromosomes in next-generation sequencing data

GigaScience ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (7) ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy H Webster ◽  
Madeline Couse ◽  
Bruno M Grande ◽  
Eric Karlins ◽  
Tanya N Phung ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Next Generation Sequencing ◽  
Sex Chromosomes ◽  
Sequence Homology ◽  
Reference Genome ◽  
Variant Calling ◽  
Next Generation Sequencing Data ◽  
Next Generation ◽  
Sequencing Data ◽  
Read Mapping ◽  
Generation Sequencing

Abstract Background Mammalian X and Y chromosomes share a common evolutionary origin and retain regions of high sequence similarity. Similar sequence content can confound the mapping of short next-generation sequencing reads to a reference genome. It is therefore possible that the presence of both sex chromosomes in a reference genome can cause technical artifacts in genomic data and affect downstream analyses and applications. Understanding this problem is critical for medical genomics and population genomic inference. Results Here, we characterize how sequence homology can affect analyses on the sex chromosomes and present XYalign, a new tool that (1) facilitates the inference of sex chromosome complement from next-generation sequencing data; (2) corrects erroneous read mapping on the sex chromosomes; and (3) tabulates and visualizes important metrics for quality control such as mapping quality, sequencing depth, and allele balance. We find that sequence homology affects read mapping on the sex chromosomes and this has downstream effects on variant calling. However, we show that XYalign can correct mismapping, resulting in more accurate variant calling. We also show how metrics output by XYalign can be used to identify XX and XY individuals across diverse sequencing experiments, including low- and high-coverage whole-genome sequencing, and exome sequencing. Finally, we discuss how the flexibility of the XYalign framework can be leveraged for other uses including the identification of aneuploidy on the autosomes. XYalign is available open source under the GNU General Public License (version 3). Conclusions Sex chromsome sequence homology causes the mismapping of short reads, which in turn affects downstream analyses. XYalign provides a reproducible framework to correct mismapping and improve variant calling on the sex chromsomes.

scholarly journals Reference flow: reducing reference bias using multiple population genomes

2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nae-Chyun Chen ◽  
Brad Solomon ◽  
Taher Mun ◽  
Sheila Iyer ◽  
Ben Langmead
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Variation ◽  
Reference Genome ◽  
Alignment Method ◽  
Sequencing Data ◽  
Computational Overhead ◽  
Reference Flow ◽  
Multiple Population ◽  
Reference Bias ◽  
Flow Alignment ◽  
Reference Genomes

AbstractMost sequencing data analyses start by aligning sequencing reads to a linear reference genome, but failure to account for genetic variation leads to reference bias and confounding of results downstream. Other approaches replace the linear reference with structures like graphs that can include genetic variation, incurring major computational overhead. We propose the reference flow alignment method that uses multiple population reference genomes to improve alignment accuracy and reduce reference bias. Compared to the graph aligner vg, reference flow achieves a similar level of accuracy and bias avoidance but with 14% of the memory footprint and 5.5 times the speed.

scholarly journals Enabling multiscale variation analysis with genome graphs

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brice Letcher ◽  
Martin Hunt ◽  
Zamin Iqbal
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Variation ◽  
Directed Acyclic Graph ◽  
Structural Variation ◽  
Reference Genome ◽  
Multiple Scales ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Variant Calling ◽  
Variation Analysis ◽  
New Algorithms ◽  
Genome Graph

AbstractBackgroundStandard approaches to characterising genetic variation revolve around mapping reads to a reference genome and describing variants in terms of differences from the reference; this is based on the assumption that these differences will be small and provides a simple coordinate system. However this fails, and the coordinates break down, when there are diverged haplotypes at a locus (e.g. one haplotype contains a multi-kilobase deletion, a second contains a few SNPs, and a third is highly diverged with hundreds of SNPs). To handle these, we need to model genetic variation that occurs at different length-scales (SNPs to large structural variants) and that occurs on alternate backgrounds. We refer to these together as multiscale variation.ResultsWe model the genome as a directed acyclic graph consisting of successive hierarchical subgraphs (“sites”) that naturally incorporate multiscale variation, and introduce an algorithm for genotyping, implemented in the software gramtools. This enables variant calling on different sequence backgrounds. In addition to producing regular VCF files, we introduce a JSON file format based on VCF, which records variant site relationships and alternate sequence backgrounds.We show two applications. First, we benchmark gramtools against existing state-of-the-art methods in joint-genotyping 17 M. tuberculosis samples at long deletions and the overlapping small variants that segregate in a cohort of 1,017 genomes. Second, in 706 African and SE Asian P. falciparum genomes, we analyse a dimorphic surface antigen gene which possesses variation on two diverged backgrounds which appeared to not recombine. This generates the first map of variation on both backgrounds, revealing patterns of recombination that were previously unknown.ConclusionsWe need new approaches to be able to jointly analyse SNP and structural variation in cohorts, and even more to handle variants on different genetic backgrounds. We have demonstrated that by modelling with a directed, acyclic and locally hierarchical genome graph, we can apply new algorithms to accurately genotype dense variation at multiple scales. We also propose a generalisation of VCF for accessing multiscale variation in genome graphs, which we hope will be of wide utility.

scholarly journals An ancestral recombination graph of human, Neanderthal, and Denisovan genomes

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (29) ◽  
pp. eabc0776
Author(s):  
Nathan K. Schaefer ◽  
Beth Shapiro ◽  
Richard E. Green
Keyword(s):  
Incomplete Lineage Sorting ◽  
Simulated Data ◽  
Modern Human ◽  
Ancestral Recombination Graph ◽  
Lineage Sorting ◽  
Human Genomes ◽  
Genome Wide ◽  
A Genome ◽  
Graph Inference ◽  
And Function

Many humans carry genes from Neanderthals, a legacy of past admixture. Existing methods detect this archaic hominin ancestry within human genomes using patterns of linkage disequilibrium or direct comparison to Neanderthal genomes. Each of these methods is limited in sensitivity and scalability. We describe a new ancestral recombination graph inference algorithm that scales to large genome-wide datasets and demonstrate its accuracy on real and simulated data. We then generate a genome-wide ancestral recombination graph including human and archaic hominin genomes. From this, we generate a map within human genomes of archaic ancestry and of genomic regions not shared with archaic hominins either by admixture or incomplete lineage sorting. We find that only 1.5 to 7% of the modern human genome is uniquely human. We also find evidence of multiple bursts of adaptive changes specific to modern humans within the past 600,000 years involving genes related to brain development and function.

Numt identification and removal with RtN!

2020 ◽  
Vol 36 (20) ◽  
pp. 5115-5116 ◽  
Author(s):  
August E Woerner ◽  
Jennifer Churchill Cihlar ◽  
Utpal Smart ◽  
Bruce Budowle
Keyword(s):  
Mitochondrial Genome ◽  
Massively Parallel Sequencing ◽  
Sequence Similarity ◽  
Variant Calling ◽  
Supplementary Information ◽  
Mitochondrial Genomes ◽  
Sequencing Data ◽  
Read Mapping ◽  
Genome Data ◽  
Mitochondrial Sequences

Abstract Motivation Assays in mitochondrial genomics rely on accurate read mapping and variant calling. However, there are known and unknown nuclear paralogs that have fundamentally different genetic properties than that of the mitochondrial genome. Such paralogs complicate the interpretation of mitochondrial genome data and confound variant calling. Results Remove the Numts! (RtN!) was developed to categorize reads from massively parallel sequencing data not based on the expected properties and sequence identities of paralogous nuclear encoded mitochondrial sequences, but instead using sequence similarity to a large database of publicly available mitochondrial genomes. RtN! removes low-level sequencing noise and mitochondrial paralogs while not impacting variant calling, while competing methods were shown to remove true variants from mitochondrial mixtures. Availability and implementation https://github.com/Ahhgust/RtN Supplementary information Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

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