Variant calling pipeline for a mammalian genome

We will run a variant calling pipeline using Genome Analysis Toolkit (GATK) using a subset sample of dog WGS as a representative to large mammalian genomes.

Getting started

Start up an m1.medium instance running Ubuntu 16.04 on Jetstream.

log in, and then make & change into a working directory:

  mkdir ~/GATK_tutorial && cd ~/GATK_tutorial

Download trimmed Fastq files

  wget https://de.cyverse.org/dl/d/3CE425D7-ECDE-46B8-AB7F-FAF07048AD42/samples.tar.gz
  tar xvzf samples.tar.gz
  rm samples.tar.gz

Quick notes about read trimming for variant calling:

  1. Trimming is data loss so be careful.
  2. Sequence trimming is complementary to variant filtration
  3. Sources of errors: a) The call is suspicious ==> low quality score (variant filtration is better than quality trimming) b) Technical problems (e.g. sequencing chemistry or physics) ==> systematic errors (can be removed by careful kmer based trimming but GATK recalibration is an alternative)
  4. Very mild quality trimming: SLIDINGWINDOW:4:2 ==> this means that the Base call accuracy is ~ 40%

Mapping

  1. Install bwa:

    cd
    curl -L https://sourceforge.net/projects/bio-bwa/files/bwa-0.7.15.tar.bz2/download > bwa-0.7.15.tar.bz2
    tar xjvf bwa-0.7.15.tar.bz2
    cd bwa-0.7.15
    make
    
    sudo cp bwa /usr/local/bin
    
    echo 'export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/bin' >> ~/.bashrc
    source ~/.bashrc
    
  2. change into a working directory:

    cd ~/GATK_tutorial
    
  3. download and prepare the reference for mapping

    wget https://de.cyverse.org/dl/d/A9330898-FC54-42A5-B205-B1B2DC0E91AE/dog_chr5.fa.gz
    gunzip dog_chr5.fa.gz
    bwa index -a bwtsw dog_chr5.fa
    
  4. Add Read group information and do mapping

Read group information is typically added during this step, but can also be added or modified after mapping using Picard AddOrReplaceReadGroups.
  for R1 in *_R1_001.pe.fq.gz;do
    SM=$(echo $R1 | cut -d"_" -f1)                                          ##sample ID
    LB=$(echo $R1 | cut -d"_" -f1,2)                                        ##library ID
    PL="Illumina"                                                           ##platform (e.g. illumina, solid)
    RGID=$(zcat $R1 | head -n1 | sed 's/:/_/g' |cut -d "_" -f1,2,3,4)       ##read group identifier 
    PU=$RGID.$LB                                                            ##Platform Unit
    echo -e "@RG\tID:$RGID\tSM:$SM\tPL:$PL\tLB:$LB\tPU:$PU"

    R2=$(echo $R1 | sed 's/_R1_/_R2_/')
    echo $R1 $R2
    bwa mem -t 4 -M -R "@RG\tID:$RGID\tSM:$SM\tPL:$PL\tLB:$LB\tPU:$PU" dog_chr5.fa $R1 $R2 > ${R1%_R1_001.pe.fq.gz}.sam
  done

Generate sorted BAM files

  1. install samtools

    sudo apt-get -y install samtools
    
  2. generate & sort BAM file

    for samfile in *.sam;do
      sample=${samfile%.sam}
      samtools view -bS -o $sample.bam $samfile
      samtools sort $sample.bam $sample.sorted
    done
    rm *.sam *_L00[0-9].bam
    

Merge replicates (one library running on two lanes):

  1. Install Java

    sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/java
    cd /usr/local/java
    sudo wget -c --header "Cookie: oraclelicense=accept-securebackup-cookie" http://download.oracle.com/otn-pub/java/jdk/8u131-b11/d54c1d3a095b4ff2b6607d096fa80163/jdk-8u131-linux-x64.tar.gz
    sudo tar xvzf jdk-8u131-linux-x64.tar.gz
    echo 'export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/java/jdk1.8.0_131/jre/bin' >> ~/.bashrc
    source ~/.bashrc
    
  2. Download Picard tools

    cd ~/GATK_tutorial
    wget https://github.com/broadinstitute/picard/releases/download/2.9.4/picard.jar
    
  3. merge the replicates

    java  -Xmx10g -jar picard.jar MergeSamFiles I=BD143_TGACCA_L005.sorted.bam I=BD143_TGACCA_L006.sorted.bam OUTPUT=BD143_TGACCA_merged.sorted.bam
    
  4. check for the changes in the header

    samtools view -H BD143_TGACCA_L005.sorted.bam
    samtools view -H BD143_TGACCA_L006.sorted.bam
    samtools view -H BD143_TGACCA_merged.sorted.bam
    
  5. remove the individual replicates

    rm BD143_TGACCA_L00*.sorted.bam
    

Mark duplicates

Duplicates:

  • PCR duplicates (originating from a single fragment of DNA) or
  • optical duplicates (result from a single amplification cluster, incorrectly detected as multiple clusters by the optical sensor of the sequencing instrument)
Duplicate marking should NOT be applied to amplicon sequencing data or other data types where reads start and stop at the same positions by design.
for sample in *.sorted.bam;do
  name=${sample%.sorted.bam}
  java  -Xmx10g -jar picard.jar MarkDuplicates INPUT=$sample OUTPUT=$name.dedup.bam METRICS_FILE=$name.metrics.txt;
done

Prepare for the Genome Analysis Toolkit (GATK) analysis

  1. download Genome Analysis Toolkit (GATK)

    wget https://de.cyverse.org/dl/d/6177B1E0-718A-4F95-A83B-C3B88E23C093/GenomeAnalysisTK-3.7-0.tar.bz2
    tar xjf GenomeAnalysisTK-3.7-0.tar.bz2
    
  2. Prepare GATK dictionary and index for the reference genome

     java -Xmx10g -jar picard.jar CreateSequenceDictionary R=dog_chr5.fa O=dog_chr5.dict
     samtools faidx dog_chr5.fa
    

Recalibrate Bases

  1. Download known polymorphic sites

    wget 'ftp://ftp.ensembl.org/pub/release-89/variation/vcf/canis_familiaris/Canis_familiaris.vcf.gz' -O canis_familiaris.vcf.gz
    
  2. Select variants on chr5 and correct chr name

    gunzip canis_familiaris.vcf.gz
    grep "^#" canis_familiaris.vcf > canis_fam_chr5.vcf
    grep "^5" canis_familiaris.vcf | sed 's/^5/chr5/' >> canis_fam_chr5.vcf
    
This algorithm treats every reference mismatch as an indication of error, so it is critical that a “comprehensive” database of known polymorphic sites is given to the tool in order to be masked and not counted as errors. What we can do with semi-model organisms?
Note the differences between genome annotation databases. Not only chromosome names but more importantly the coordinate system (interesting post)
  1. download R (only to generate figures to observe the changes, but we will need it later as well)

    sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get -y install gdebi-core r-base
    

    After that finishes, download and install RStudio:

    wget https://download2.rstudio.org/rstudio-server-1.0.143-amd64.deb
    sudo gdebi -n rstudio-server-1.0.143-amd64.deb 
    

    Install some packages

    sudo Rscript -e "install.packages('ggplot2', contriburl=contrib.url('http://cran.r-project.org/'))"
    sudo Rscript -e "install.packages('gplots', contriburl=contrib.url('http://cran.r-project.org/'))"
    sudo Rscript -e "install.packages('reshape', contriburl=contrib.url('http://cran.r-project.org/'))"
    sudo Rscript -e "install.packages('gsalib', contriburl=contrib.url('http://cran.r-project.org/'))"
    sudo Rscript -e "install.packages('Biobase', contriburl=contrib.url('http://bioconductor.org/packages/release/bioc/'))"
    

    Add a password to your instance

    sudo passwd tx160085
    

    You will be prompted to enter a new password. Make a password you can remember:

    Enter new UNIX password: 
    Retype new UNIX password:
    

    Get the address of your own RStudio web server

    echo My RStudio Web server is running at: http://$(hostname):8787/
    

    Copy the link to a new tab of your browser and hit enter.

    Username: `tx160085`
    Password: `The one you just created` 
    

    Keep this tab open and will come back to it in a min. ** Now go to your web shell **

  2. run recalibration

    for sample in *.dedup.bam;do
      name=${sample%.dedup.bam}
      samtools index $sample
      java -Xmx10g -jar GenomeAnalysisTK.jar -T BaseRecalibrator -R dog_chr5.fa -I $sample -knownSites canis_fam_chr5.vcf -o $name.1st.table
      java -Xmx10g -jar GenomeAnalysisTK.jar -T BaseRecalibrator -R dog_chr5.fa -I $sample -knownSites canis_fam_chr5.vcf -BQSR $name.1st.table -o $name.2nd.table
      java -Xmx10g -jar GenomeAnalysisTK.jar -T PrintReads -R dog_chr5.fa -I $sample -BQSR $name.2nd.table -o $name.recal.bam
      java -Xmx10g -jar GenomeAnalysisTK.jar -T AnalyzeCovariates -R dog_chr5.fa -before $name.1st.table -after $name.2nd.table -plots $name.BQSR.pdf
    done
    

More details about the tool and interpretation of the output figures

Variant calling

  1. per-sample calling

    for sample in *.recal.bam;do
      name=${sample%.recal.bam}
      java -Xmx10g -jar GenomeAnalysisTK.jar -T HaplotypeCaller -R dog_chr5.fa --dbsnp canis_fam_chr5.vcf -I $sample --emitRefConfidence GVCF -nct 3 -o $name.g.vcf
    done
    
  2. Joint Genotyping

     java -Xmx10g -jar GenomeAnalysisTK.jar -T GenotypeGVCFs -R dog_chr5.fa --dbsnp canis_fam_chr5.vcf \
     --variant BD143_TGACCA_merged.g.vcf \
     --variant BD174_CAGATC_L005.g.vcf \
     --variant BD225_TAGCTT_L007.g.vcf \
     -o raw_variants.vcf
    

Filter Variants

The best way to filter the raw variant callset is to use variant quality score recalibration (VQSR). However this requires high-quality sets of known variants for training, which for many organisms are not yet available. It also requires a lot of data, so it can be difficult or even impossible to use on small datasets that involve only one or a few samples, on targeted sequencing data, or on RNAseq.
Hard filtering flat thresholds for specific annotations: GATK uses VariantFiltration for hard filtering. The documentation page provides links to all possible annotation modules. You can get some recommendations here.
  1. Split variants into SNPs and INDELs

    java -Xmx10g -jar GenomeAnalysisTK.jar -T SelectVariants -R dog_chr5.fa -V raw_variants.vcf -selectType SNP -o raw_SNP.vcf 
    java -Xmx10g -jar GenomeAnalysisTK.jar -T SelectVariants -R dog_chr5.fa -V raw_variants.vcf -selectType INDEL -o raw_INDEL.vcf 
    
  2. Explore the distribution of different annotations

    wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/drtamermansour/angus/2017/densityCurves.R
    for var in "SNP" "INDEL";do
     for ann in "QD" "MQRankSum" "FS" "SOR" "ReadPosRankSum";do
      annFile=$var.$ann; echo $annFile;
      awk -v k="$ann=" '!/#/{n=split($8,a,";"); for(i=1;i<=n;i++) if(a[i]~"^"k) {sub(k,$3" ",a[i]); print a[i]}}' raw_$var.vcf > $annFile
      grep -v "^\." $annFile > known.$annFile
      grep "^\." $annFile > novel.$annFile
      Rscript densityCurves.R "$annFile"
      rm $annFile known.$annFile novel.$annFile
    done; done
    
  3. Apply the filters

    java -Xmx10g -jar GenomeAnalysisTK.jar -T VariantFiltration -R dog_chr5.fa -V raw_SNP.vcf \
    --filterExpression "QD < 2.0 || FS > 60.0 || MQ < 40.0" \
    --filterName "snp_filter" \
    -o filtered_SNP.vcf
    
    java -Xmx10g -jar GenomeAnalysisTK.jar -T VariantFiltration -R dog_chr5.fa -V raw_INDEL.vcf \
    --filterExpression "QD < 2.0 || FS > 200.0" \
    --filterName "indel_filter" \
    -o filtered_INDEL.vcf