This tool is currently deprecated and no longer useful. Please have a look at alternative tools, such as ones described and compared in Little et. al. 2021, UNMASC: tumor-only variant calling with unmatched normal controls
This code performs a virtual normal correction on a set of input variants. For more information see our paper in Genome Research here
This analysis can be run on both small variants (i.e. single nucleotide variants and indels of up to ~50 bps) and the larger structural variations (SVs)
For any questions, please contact Saskia Hiltemann (s.hiltemann@erasmusmc.nl)
Tools have moved to the main Galaxy ToolShed: https://toolshed.g2.bx.psu.edu/
There is an example run using just 3 normals (chr21 only) and input from HCC1187 (chr21 only) available in the folder "example". See the README document in the example folder for more information about running the example data.
Reference Genome Download the reference genome (.crr file) of the desired build (hg18=build36, hg19=build37) from Complete Genomics: ftp://ftp.completegenomics.com/ReferenceFiles/.
CGATools binary The cgatools binary version 1.8 is included in this repository under bin/cgatools18, alternatively it may be obtained from cgatools.sourceforge.net.
Make sure the cgatools binary is available on your PATH. For example do something like:
The program expects a binary called cgatools18 to be present on the PATH. To change the expected name of this binary, edit the cgatools variable at the top of the scripts:
#!/bin/bash
### location of cgatools binary, change as needed, binaries may be downloaded from Complete Genomics website here: http://cgatools.sourceforge.net/
# latest version as of the writing of this code is included in this repository (v1.8)
cgatools="cgatools18"
Normal Samples Configure your Virtual Normal set (see section Virtual Normal Sets below)
Running the VN correction on small variant data:
$ bash virtual-normal-correction-smallvariants.sh \
--variants <input list of variants> \
--reference <reference .crr file> \
--VN_varfiles_list <list with paths to CG-sequenced normals, one file per line> \
--threshold <filter out variants appearing in at least this many normals> \
--threshold_highconf <only output variants fully called in at least this many normals> \
--outputfile_all <where to store final output> \
--outputfile_filtered <where to store final output filtered for the two threshold values> \Running the VN correction on small variant data:
$ bash virtual-normal-correction-SVs.sh \
--variants <CG junctions file> \
--reference <reference .crr file> \
--VN_junctionfiles_list <list with paths to CG-sequenced normals, one file per line> \
--output_prefix <where to store final output, for example output/mysample> Optionally the following additional parameters may also be given, if any of these parameters are not specified, the default values are used:
--scoreThresholdA <default 10. The minimum number of discordant mate pair alignments supporting the junction from input genome>
--scoreThresholdB <default 10. The minimum number of discordant mate pair alignments supporting the junction from normal genoes>
--distance <default 200. Maximum distance between coordinates of potentially compatible junctions.>
--minlength <default 500. Minimum deletion junctions length to be included into the difference file>The input format may be obtained from a CG varfile by running the CGAtools ListVariants tool, or may be obtained from a VCF file by running the conversion script included in this repository (VCF-2-Variantlist.sh).
Example of VCF conversion:
$ bash VCF-2- Variantlist.sh <VCF file> <output variantlist>
Example CG varfile conversion:
cgatools18 listvariants --beta --variants <varfile> --reference <reference crr file>
The input format must be a tab-delimited file with the following header line:
variantId - chromosome - begin - end - varType - reference - alleleSeq - xRef
variantID - may be any unique identifier
chromosome - must have a chr prefix
begin - starting cooridinate in 0-based half-open format
end - end coordinate of the variant in 0-based half-open format
varType - must be one of the following values: snp,ins,del,sub
reference - nucleotide sequence of reference genome at given locus
alleleSeq - observed nucleotide sequence in sample at given locus
xRef - is not used by this program but may contain any annotations you wish or may be left blank or omitted altogether
Example:
variantId chromosome begin end varType reference alleleSeq xRef
1 chr1 38231 38232 snp A G dbsnp.86:rs806727;dbsnp.131:rs77823476
2 chr1 46669 46670 snp A G dbsnp.100:rs2548905
3 chr1 47107 47108 snp G C dbsnp.100:rs2531241
4 chr1 47291 47292 snp T G dbsnp.100:rs2691275
5 chr1 49271 49272 snp G A dbsnp.100:rs2531245
6 chr1 49290 49291 snp C T dbsnp.130:rs71240757
7 chr1 49313 49315 sub GT AC
...
For the SV analysis, input must be a Complete Genomics junctions file.
There are 3 output files for the small variant analysis:
- The main output file
containing all variants found in the sample, annotated with the frequency in the normal sets. - The filtered output file
same format as 1 but all variants which occur in more than the specified number of normals were removed, as well as all variant which were no-called or half-called in more than the specified number of normals - The expanded file
This is the input file with a column added per normal genome specifying the genotype (00 for not present, 01 for heterozygous, 11 for homozygous, NN for no-called, etc)
Example of main output file:
variantId chromosome begin end varType reference alleleSeq xRef VN_occurrences VN_frequency VN_fullycalled_count VN_fullycalled_frequency VN_00 VN_01 VN_11 VN_0N VN_1N VN_NN VN_0 VN_1 VN_N
3155150 chr21 9412628 9412629 snp C T dbsnp.130:rs71220886 1 0.333333 1 0.333333 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0
[..]
Description of the columns added:
VN_occurrences - Number of normals this variants was present in
VN_frequency - Fraction of normals this variant was present in
VN_fullycalled_count - Number of normals that were fully-called at this locus
VN_fullycalled_frequency - Franction of normals that were fully-called at this locus
VN_00 - Number of normals without the variant and fully called at the locus.
VN_01 - Number of normals with heterozygous occurrence of the variant.
VN_11 - Number of normals with homozygous occurrence of the variant.
VN_0N - Number of normals without variant but half-called at the locus.
VN_1N - Number of normals with the variant, but half-called at the locus.
VN_NN - Number of normals without the variant, but nocalled at the locus.
VN_0 - Number of normals without the variant, but with only one allele present (e.g. X and Y chromosomes).
VN_1 - Number of normals with the variant, but with only one allele present (e.g. X and Y chromosomes).
VN_N - Number of normals without the variant, but no-called at the locus with only one allele present (e.g. X and Y chromosomes).
Example of expanded output file:
variantId chromosome begin end varType reference alleleSeq xRef NA06985-200-37-ASM NA06994-200-37-ASM NA07357-200-37-ASM
3155150 chr21 9412628 9412629 snp C T dbsnp.130:rs71220886 00 NN 1N
[..]
There are two output files for the SV analysis:
- Filtered Junctions
- Report
The output junctions are the same format as the input; CG junctions file, but with SVs that were present in one or more of the normals removed.
The report tells you how many variants were removed at each step.
Example Report
report of run 1:
----------------------
#GENERATED_BY cgatools
#GENERATED_AT 2015-Oct-12 16:06:03.542623
#CGATOOLS_VERSION 1.8.0
#FORMAT_VERSION 2.4
#TYPE JUNCTIONDIFF_REPORT
>fileId inputJunctions filteredJunctions incompatible filteredIncompatible compatible scoreThreshold maxDistance minDelLength
65 1581 1581 746 621 835 10 200 500
66 5376 2426 1590 0 836 10 200 500
report of run 2:
----------------------
#GENERATED_BY cgatools
#GENERATED_AT 2015-Oct-12 16:06:03.597889
#CGATOOLS_VERSION 1.8.0
#FORMAT_VERSION 2.4
#TYPE JUNCTIONDIFF_REPORT
>fileId inputJunctions filteredJunctions incompatible filteredIncompatible compatible scoreThreshold maxDistance minDelLength
65 621 621 504 504 117 10 200 500
66 6489 2163 2047 0 116 10 200 500
report of run 3:
----------------------
#GENERATED_BY cgatools
#GENERATED_AT 2015-Oct-12 16:06:03.655524
#CGATOOLS_VERSION 1.8.0
#FORMAT_VERSION 2.4
#TYPE JUNCTIONDIFF_REPORT
>fileId inputJunctions filteredJunctions incompatible filteredIncompatible compatible scoreThreshold maxDistance minDelLength
65 504 504 447 447 57 10 200 500
66 4883 2088 2031 0 57 10 200 500
for each normal genome, the first line indicates the current set of junctions, and the second line indicates the normal junctionsfile. So in this example, in the first run we started with 1581 input junctions, we compared this to a normal containing 5376 junctions, and were left with 621 junctions after correction.
Download all CG varfiles you wish to use as a virtual normal. Create a text file with their locations, one per line. For instance, for the example data this text file looks like
normals/smallvariants/var-NA06985-200-37-ASM_chr21.tsv
normals/smallvariants/var-NA06994-200-37-ASM_chr21.tsv
normals/smallvariants/var-NA07357-200-37-ASM_chr21.tsv
Be careful not to have any empty lines in your file.
The set of CG-sequenced normals used in the paper may be downloaded from the 1000 Genomes Project site. Only for build hg19.
Here is a list of all the locations of the CG normals on the 1000Genomes site:
ftp://ftp.1000genomes.ebi.ac.uk/vol1/ftp/historical_data/former_toplevel/complete_genomics_indices/20130725.cg_data.untar.index
(just download all files starting with "var-" (and for SVs download everything starting with "allJunctions") )
NOTE: it seems they have recently moved the files, and not yet updated the list, and you should now put "phase3" before all locations it seems, so if the file says: data/NA12812/cg_data/ASM_lcl/var-GS000016405-ASM.tsv.bz2 the address now is: ftp://ftp.1000genomes.ebi.ac.uk/vol1/ftp/phase3/data/NA12812/cg_data/ASM_lcl/var-GS000016405-ASM.tsv.bz2 etc.
A smaller set of normals, has some overlap with the set of normals in 1000 Genomes Project, but also available on build hg18. This data may be downloaded from the Complete Genomics FTP server: ftp://ftp2.completegenomics.com/Diversity/
The parents from the trios available from Complete Genomics may also be used in the virtual normal and can be obtained from the Complete Genomics FTP server: ftp://ftp2.completegenomics.com/YRI_trio and ftp://ftp2.completegenomics.com/PUR_trio/
Be careful not to include the child, as this will skew the frequencies of occurrence of variants within the population; you should only ever use unrelated individuals.