Usage

The SNP Pipeline is run from the Unix command line. The pipeline consists of a collection of shell scripts and python scripts.

Script
Description
run_snp_pipeline.sh
This do-it-all script runs the other scripts listed below,
comprising all the pipeline steps
cfsan_snp_pipeline
This is the main command line tool with subcommands listed below
data
Copies supplied example data to a work directory
index_ref
Indexes the reference genome
map_reads
Aligns samples to the reference genome
call_sites
Finds high-confidence SNPs in each sample
filter_regions
Remove SNPs in abnormal regions.
merge_sites
Combines the SNP positions across all samples into a single
unified SNP list file
call_consensus
Calls the consensus SNPs for each sample
merge_vcfs
Creates a multi-sample VCF file with the SNPs found in all
samples
snp_matrix
Creates a matrix of SNPs across all samples
distance
Computes the SNP distances between all pairs of samples
snp_reference
Writes the reference sequence bases at SNP locations to
a fasta file
collect_metrics
Collects useful coverage and variant statistics about
each sample
combine_metrics
Creates a table of coverage and variant statistics for
all samples

Inputs

Before using the SNP Pipeline, make sure your input data is organized and named the way the pipeline expects. Follow these guidelines:

  • No spaces in file names and directory names.

  • A fasta genome reference file must exist in a separate directory.

  • The samples must be organized with a separate directory for each sample. Each sample directory should contain the fastq files for that sample. The name of the directory should match the name of the sample. When using paired-end fastq files, the forward and reverse files must be in the same directory.

  • The script needs to know how to find all the samples. You have two choices:

    1. You can organize all the sample directories under a common parent directory.
    2. You can have sample directories anywhere you like, but you will need to create a file listing the path to all the sample directories.
  • The sample fastq files must be named with one of the following file patterns: (*.fastq, *.fq, *.fastq.gz, *.fq.gz). It’s okay if different samples are named differently, but the two mate files of paired-end samples must be named with the same extension.

  • If there is an outgroup among samples, a file containing the sample ids of the outgroup samples must be created in advance, and the relative or absolute path of this file should be specified in the parameter “RemoveAbnormalSnp_ExtraParams” in the configuration file “snppipeline.conf” (see the description of the parameter “RemoveAbnormalSnp_ExtraParams”).

Outputs

By default, the SNP Pipeline generates the following output files. If you need more control over the output, you can run the pipeline one step at a time. See Step-by-Step Workflows.

  • snplist.txt : contains a list of the high-confidence SNP positions identified by the phase 1 SNP caller (VarScan) in at least one of the samples. These are the only positions where the consensus caller subsequently looks for SNPs in all samples. The consensus caller often finds SNPs at the same positions in other samples, and those additional SNPs are not listed in the snplist.txt file. While the snplist.txt file has an accurate list of SNP positions, it does not contain the final list of samples having SNPs at those positions. If you need the final set of SNPs per sample, you should not use the snplist.txt file. Instead, refer to the snpma.fasta file or the snpma.vcf file. The corresponding snplist_preserved.txt file is produced when snp filtering removes the abnormal snps.
  • consensus.fasta : for each sample, the consensus base calls at the high-confidence positions where SNPs were detected in any of the samples. The corresponding consensus_preserved.fasta file is produced when snp filtering removes the abnormal snps.
  • consensus.vcf : for each sample, the VCF file of SNPs called, as well as failed SNPs at the high-confidence positions where SNPs were detected in any of the samples. The corresponding consensus_preserved.vcf file is produced when snp filtering removes the abnormal snps.
  • snpma.fasta : the SNP matrix containing the consensus base for each of the samples at the high-confidence positions where SNPs were identified in any of the samples. The matrix contains one row per sample and one column per SNP position. Non-SNP positions are not included in the matrix. The matrix is formatted as a fasta file, with each sequence (all of identical length) corresponding to the SNPs in the correspondingly named sequence. The corresponding snpma_preserved.fasta file is produced when snp filtering removes the abnormal snps.
  • snp_distance_pairwise.tsv : contains the pairwise SNP distance between all pairs of samples. The file is tab-separated, with a header row and three columns identifing the two sequences and their distance. The corresponding snp_distance_pairwise_preserved.tsv file is produced when snp filtering removes the abnormal snps.
  • snp_distance_matrix.tsv : contains a matrix of the SNP distances between all pairs of samples. The file is tab-separated, with a header row and rows and columns for all samples. The corresponding snp_distance_matrix_preserved.tsv file is produced when snp filtering removes the abnormal snps.
  • snpma.vcf : contains the merged multi-sample VCF file identifying the positions and snps for all samples. The corresponding snpma_preserved.vcf file is produced when snp filtering removes the abnormal snps.
  • referenceSNP.fasta : a fasta file containing the reference sequence bases at all the SNP locations. The corresponding referenceSNP_preserved.fasta file is produced when snp filtering removes the abnormal snps.
  • metrics : for each sample, contains the size of the sample, number of reads, alignment rate, pileup depth, and number of SNPs found.
  • metrics.tsv : a tab-separated table of metrics for all samples containing the size of the samples, number of reads, alignment rate, pileup depth, and number of SNPs found.
  • error.log : a summary of errors detected during SNP Pipeline execution

All-In-One SNP Pipeline Script

Most users should be able to run the SNP Pipeline by launching a single script, run_snp_pipeline.sh. This script is easy to use and works equally well on your desktop workstation or on a High Performance Computing cluster. You can find examples of using the script in the sections below.

If you need more flexibility, you can run the individual pipeline scripts one step at a time. See Step-by-Step Workflows.

Logging

When the SNP Pipeline is launched with the run_snp_pipeline.sh script, it generates log files for each processing step of the pipeline. The logs for each pipeline run are stored in a time-stamped directory under the output directory. If the pipeline is re-run on the same samples, the old log files are kept and a new log directory is created for the new run. For example, the output directory might look like this after two runs:

drwx------ 2 me group 4096 Oct 17 16:37 logs-20141017.154428/
drwx------ 2 me group 4096 Oct 17 16:38 logs-20141017.163848/
drwx------ 2 me group 4096 Oct 17 16:37 reference/
-rw------- 1 me group  194 Oct 17 16:38 referenceSNP.fasta
-rw------- 1 me group  182 Oct 17 16:38 referenceSNP_preserved.fasta
-rw------- 1 me group  104 Oct 17 16:38 sampleDirectories.txt
drwx------ 6 me group 4096 Oct 17 16:37 samples/
-rw------- 1 me group 7216 Oct 17 16:38 snplist.txt
-rw------- 1 me group 6824 Oct 17 16:38 snplist_preserved.txt
-rw------- 1 me group  708 Oct 17 16:38 snpma.fasta
-rw------- 1 me group  682 Oct 17 16:38 snpma_preserved.fasta

A log file is created for each step of the pipeline for each sample. For performamnce reasons, the samples are sorted by size and processed largest first. This sorting is reflected in the naming of the log files. The log files are named with a suffix indicating the sample number:

-rw------- 1 me group  1330 Oct 17 16:37 alignSamples.log-1
-rw------- 1 me group  1330 Oct 17 16:37 alignSamples.log-2
-rw------- 1 me group  1330 Oct 17 16:37 alignSamples.log-3
-rw------- 1 me group 12045 Oct 17 16:37 prepReference.log
-rw------- 1 me group  1686 Oct 17 16:37 prepSamples.log-1
-rw------- 1 me group  1686 Oct 17 16:37 prepSamples.log-2
-rw------- 1 me group  1686 Oct 17 16:37 prepSamples.log-3
-rw------- 1 me group   983 Oct 17 16:37 snpList.log
-rw------- 1 me group   983 Oct 17 16:37 snpList_preserved.log
-rw------- 1 me group  1039 Oct 17 16:37 snpMatrix.log
-rw------- 1 me group  1039 Oct 17 16:37 snpMatrix_preserved.log
-rw------- 1 me group   841 Oct 17 16:37 snpPileup.log-1
-rw------- 1 me group   841 Oct 17 16:37 snpPileup.log-2
-rw------- 1 me group   841 Oct 17 16:37 snpPileup.log-3
-rw------- 1 me group   806 Oct 17 16:37 snpReference.log
-rw------- 1 me group   806 Oct 17 16:37 snpReference_preserved.log

To determine which samples correspond to which log files, you can either grep the log files for the sample name or inspect the sorted sampleDirectories.txt file to determine the sequential position of the sample. The file names are consistent regardless of whether the pipeline is run on a workstation or HPC cluster.

In addition to the processing log files, the log directory also contains a copy of the configuration file used for each run – capturing the parameters used during the run.

Mirrored Inputs

When the SNP Pipeline is launched with the run_snp_pipeline.sh script, it has the optional capability to create a mirrored copy of the input fasta and fastq files. You might use this feature to avoid polluting the reference directory and sample directories with the intermediate files generated by the snp pipeline. The mirroring function can either create normal copies of the files, or it can create links to the original files – saving both time and disk space. With linked files, you can easily run multiple experiments on the same data or different overlapping sets of samples without having duplicate copies of the original sample files. See the run_snp_pipeline.sh command reference for the mirroring syntax.

The mirroring function creates a “reference” subdirectory and a “samples” subdirectory under the main output directory. One directory per sample is created under the “samples” directory. The generated intermediate files are placed into the mirrored directories, not in the original locations of the inputs. The SNP Pipeline attempts to preserve the time stamps of the original files in the mirrored directories.

Keep in mind the following limitations when mirroring the inputs.

  • Some file systems do not support soft (symbolic) links. If you attempt to create a soft link on a file system without the capability, the operation will fail with an error message.
  • Hard links cannot be used to link files across two different file systems. The original file and the link must both reside on the same file system.
  • Normal file copies should always work, but the copy operation can be lengthy and the duplicate files will consume extra storage space.

High Performance Computing

The SNP Pipeline can be executed on a High Performance Computing cluster. The Torque and Grid Engine job queue managers are supported.

Torque

To run the SNP Pipeline on torque:

run_snp_pipeline.sh -Q torque -s mySamplesDir myReference.fasta

You may need to change the Torque_StripJobArraySuffix configuration parameter if you see qsub illegal dependency errors.

You can pass extra options to the Torque qsub command by configuring the Torque_QsubExtraParams parameter in the configuration file.

Grid Engine

To run the SNP Pipeline on grid engine you must use a configuration file to specify the name of your parallel environment.

Grab the default configuration file:

cfsan_snp_pipeline data configurationFile

Edit the snppipeline.conf file and make the following change:

GridEngine_PEname="myPE" # substitute the name of your PE

You may also need to change the GridEngine_StripJobArraySuffix configuration parameter if you see qsub illegal dependency errors.

Then run the pipeline with the -c and -Q command line options:

run_snp_pipeline.sh -c snppipeline.conf -Q grid -s mySamplesDir myReference.fasta

You can pass extra options to the Grid Engine qsub command by configuring the GridEngine_QsubExtraParams parameter in the configuration file. Among other things, you can control which queue the snp-pipeline will use when executing on an HPC with multiple queues.

See also: Performance.

Tool Selection

The SNP Pipeline lets you choose either the Bowtie2 aligner or the Smalt aligner. Your choice of aligner, as well as the command line options for the aligner are specified in the SNP Pipeline configuration file.

Grab the default configuration file:

cfsan_snp_pipeline data configurationFile

To run the SNP Pipeline with Bowtie2, edit snppipeline.conf with these settings:

SnpPipeline_Aligner="bowtie2"
Bowtie2Build_ExtraParams="" # substitute the command line options you want here
Bowtie2Align_ExtraParams="" # substitute the command line options you want here

To run the SNP Pipeline with Smalt, edit snppipeline.conf with these settings:

SnpPipeline_Aligner="smalt"
SmaltIndex_ExtraParams="" # substitute the command line options you want here
SmaltAlign_ExtraParams="" # substitute the command line options you want here

Then run the pipeline with the -c command line option:

run_snp_pipeline.sh -c snppipeline.conf -s mySamplesDir myReference.fasta

See also Configuration.

All-In-One SNP Pipeline Workflows

The sections below give detailed examples of workflows you can run with the all-in-one run_snp_pipeline.sh script.

All-In-One Workflow - Lambda Virus

The SNP Pipeline software distribution includes a small Lambda Virus data set that can be quickly processed to verify the basic functionality of the software.

Step 1 - Gather data:

# The SNP Pipeline distribution includes sample data organized as shown below:
snppipeline/data/lambdaVirusInputs/reference/lambda_virus.fasta
snppipeline/data/lambdaVirusInputs/samples/sample1/sample1_1.fastq
snppipeline/data/lambdaVirusInputs/samples/sample1/sample1_2.fastq
snppipeline/data/lambdaVirusInputs/samples/sample2/sample2_1.fastq
snppipeline/data/lambdaVirusInputs/samples/sample2/sample2_2.fastq
snppipeline/data/lambdaVirusInputs/samples/sample3/sample3_1.fastq
snppipeline/data/lambdaVirusInputs/samples/sample3/sample3_2.fastq
snppipeline/data/lambdaVirusInputs/samples/sample4/sample4_1.fastq
snppipeline/data/lambdaVirusInputs/samples/sample4/sample4_2.fastq

# Copy the supplied test data to a work area:
cd test
cfsan_snp_pipeline data lambdaVirusInputs testLambdaVirus
cd testLambdaVirus

Step 2 - Run the SNP Pipeline:

# Run the pipeline, specifing the locations of samples and the reference
#
# Specify the following options:
#   -s : samples parent directory
run_snp_pipeline.sh -s samples reference/lambda_virus.fasta

Step 3 - View and verify the results:

Upon successful completion of the pipeline, the snplist.txt file should have 165 entries, and the snplist_preserved.txt should have 136 entries. The SNP Matrix can be found in snpma.fasta and snpma_preserved.fasta. The corresponding reference bases are in the referenceSNP.fasta and referenceSNP_preserved.fasta:

# Verify the result files were created
ls -l snplist.txt
ls -l snpma.fasta
ls -l snpma.vcf
ls -l referenceSNP.fasta
ls -l snp_distance_matrix.tsv
ls -l snplist_preserved.txt
ls -l snpma_preserved.fasta
ls -l snpma_preserved.vcf
ls -l referenceSNP_preserved.fasta
ls -l snp_distance_matrix_preserved.tsv

# Verify correct results
cfsan_snp_pipeline data lambdaVirusExpectedResults expectedResults
diff -q -s snplist.txt             expectedResults/snplist.txt
diff -q -s snpma.fasta             expectedResults/snpma.fasta
diff -q -s referenceSNP.fasta      expectedResults/referenceSNP.fasta
diff -q -s snp_distance_matrix.tsv expectedResults/snp_distance_matrix.tsv
diff -q -s snplist_preserved.txt             expectedResults/snplist_preserved.txt
diff -q -s snpma_preserved.fasta             expectedResults/snpma_preserved.fasta
diff -q -s referenceSNP_preserved.fasta      expectedResults/referenceSNP_preserved.fasta
diff -q -s snp_distance_matrix_preserved.tsv expectedResults/snp_distance_matrix_preserved.tsv

# View the per-sample metrics
xdg-open metrics.tsv

All-In-One Workflow - Salmonella Agona

The Salmonella Agona data set contains a small number of realistic sequences that can be processed in a reasonable amount of time. Due to the large size of real data, the sequences must be downloaded from the NCBI SRA. Follow the instructions below to download and process the data set.

Step 1 - Gather data:

# The SNP Pipeline distribution does not include the sample data, but does
#   include information about the sample data, as well as the reference
#   sequence.  The files are organized as shown below:
snppipeline/data/agonaInputs/sha256sumCheck
snppipeline/data/agonaInputs/reference/NC_011149.fasta
snppipeline/data/agonaInputs/sampleList

# Copy the supplied test data to a work area:
mkdir testAgona
cd testAgona
cfsan_snp_pipeline data agonaInputs cleanInputs
cd cleanInputs

# Create sample directories and download sample data from SRA at NCBI. Note that
#   we use the fastq-dump command from the NCBI SRA-toolkit to fetch sample
#   sequences. There are other ways to get the data, but the SRA-toolkit is
#   easy to install, and does a good job of downloading large files.
mkdir samples
< sampleList xargs -I % sh -c 'mkdir samples/%; fastq-dump --gzip --origfmt --split-files --outdir samples/% %;'

# Check the data
#   The original data was used to generate a hash as follows:
#     sha256sum reference/*.fasta samples/*/*.fastq > sha256sumCheck
#   The command below checks the downloaded data (and the reference sequence) against the
#     hashes that are saved in the sha256sumCheck file using sha256sum command, which is
#     generally available on unix systems.
sha256sum -c sha256sumCheck
cd ..

Step 2 - Run the SNP Pipeline:

# Run the pipeline
# Specify the following options:
#   -m : mirror the input samples and reference files
#   -o : output directory
#   -s : samples parent directory
run_snp_pipeline.sh -m soft -o outputDirectory -s cleanInputs/samples cleanInputs/reference/NC_011149.fasta

Step 3 - View and verify the results:

Upon successful completion of the pipeline, the snplist.txt file should have 3121 entries, and the snplist_preserved.txt should have 249 entries. The SNP Matrix can be found in snpma.fasta. The corresponding reference bases are in the files referenceSNP.fasta and referenceSNP_preserved.fasta:

# Verify the result files were created
ls -l outputDirectory/snplist.txt
ls -l outputDirectory/snpma.fasta
ls -l outputDirectory/snpma.vcf
ls -l outputDirectory/referenceSNP.fasta
ls -l outputDirectory/snp_distance_matrix.tsv
ls -l outputDirectory/snplist_preserved.txt
ls -l outputDirectory/snpma_preserved.fasta
ls -l outputDirectory/snpma_preserved.vcf
ls -l outputDirectory/referenceSNP_preserved.fasta
ls -l outputDirectory/snp_distance_matrix_preserved.tsv

# Verify correct results
cfsan_snp_pipeline data agonaExpectedResults expectedResults
diff -q -s outputDirectory/snplist.txt             expectedResults/snplist.txt
diff -q -s outputDirectory/snpma.fasta             expectedResults/snpma.fasta
diff -q -s outputDirectory/referenceSNP.fasta      expectedResults/referenceSNP.fasta
diff -q -s outputDirectory/snp_distance_matrix.tsv expectedResults/snp_distance_matrix.tsv
diff -q -s outputDirectory/snplist_preserved.txt             expectedResults/snplist_preserved.txt
diff -q -s outputDirectory/snpma_preserved.fasta             expectedResults/snpma_preserved.fasta
diff -q -s outputDirectory/referenceSNP_preserved.fasta      expectedResults/referenceSNP_preserved.fasta
diff -q -s outputDirectory/snp_distance_matrix_preserved.tsv expectedResults/snp_distance_matrix_preserved.tsv

# View the per-sample metrics
xdg-open outputDirectory/metrics.tsv

All-In-One Workflow - Listeria monocytogenes

This Listeria monocytogene data set is based on an oubreak investigation related to contamination in stone fruit. It only contains environmental/produce isolates, though the full investigation contained data obtained from clinical samples as well. Due to the large size of the data, the sequences must be downloaded from the NCBI SRA. The instructions below show how to create the data set and process it. We do the processing with the run_snp_pipeline.sh script, which does much of the work in one step, but provides less insight into (and control of) the analysis process.

This workflow illustrates how to run the SNP Pipeline on a High Performance Computing cluster (HPC) running the Torque job queue manager. If you do not have a cluster available, you can still work through this example – just remove the -Q torque command line option in step 2.

Step 1 - Create dataset:

# The SNP Pipeline distribution does not include the sample data, but does
#   include information about the sample data, as well as the reference
#   sequence.  The files are organized as shown below:
snppipeline/data/listeriaInputs/sha256sumCheck
snppipeline/data/listeriaInputs/reference/CFSAN023463.HGAP.draft.fasta
snppipeline/data/listeriaInputs/sampleList

# Copy the supplied test data to a work area:
mkdir testDir
cd testDir
cfsan_snp_pipeline data listeriaInputs cleanInputs
cd cleanInputs

# Create sample directories and download sample data from SRA at NCBI. Note that
#   we use the fastq-dump command from the NCBI SRA-toolkit to fetch sample
#   sequences. There are other ways to get the data, but the SRA-toolkit is
#   easy to install, and does a good job of downloading large files.
mkdir samples
< sampleList xargs -I % sh -c ' mkdir samples/%; fastq-dump --gzip --origfmt --split-files --outdir samples/% %;'

# Check the data
#   The original data was used to generate a hash as follows:
#     sha256sum sampleList reference/*.fasta samples/*/*.fastq > sha256sumCheck
#   The command below checks the downloaded data (and the reference sequence) against the
#     hashes that are saved in the sha256sumCheck file using sha256sum command, which is
#     generally available on unix systems.
sha256sum -c sha256sumCheck
cd ..

Step 2 - Run the SNP Pipeline:

There are a couple of parameters you may need to adjust for this analysis or other analysis work that your do. These parameters are the number of CPU cores that are used, and the amount of memory that is used by the java virtual machine. Both can be set in a configuration file you can pass to run_snp_pipeline.sh with the -c option. See Performance.

Launch the pipeline:

# Run the pipeline.
# Specify the following options:
#   -m : mirror the input samples and reference files
#   -Q : HPC job queue manager
#   -o : output directory
#   -s : samples parent directory
run_snp_pipeline.sh -m soft -Q torque -o outputDirectory -s cleanInputs/samples cleanInputs/reference/CFSAN023463.HGAP.draft.fasta

Step 3 - View and verify the results:

Upon successful completion of the pipeline, the snplist.txt file should have 11,496 entries, and the snplist_preserved.txt file should have 1,110 entries. The SNP Matrix can be found in snpma.fasta and snpma_preserved.fasta. The corresponding reference bases are in the referenceSNP.fasta and referenceSNP_preserved.fasta:

# Verify the result files were created
ls -l outputDirectory/snplist.txt
ls -l outputDirectory/snpma.fasta
ls -l outputDirectory/snpma.vcf
ls -l outputDirectory/referenceSNP.fasta
ls -l outputDirectory/snp_distance_matrix.tsv
ls -l outputDirectory/snplist_preserved.txt
ls -l outputDirectory/snpma_preserved.fasta
ls -l outputDirectory/snpma_preserved.vcf
ls -l outputDirectory/referenceSNP_preserved.fasta
ls -l outputDirectory/snp_distance_matrix_preserved.tsv

# Verify correct results
cfsan_snp_pipeline data listeriaExpectedResults expectedResults
diff -q -s outputDirectory/snplist.txt             expectedResults/snplist.txt
diff -q -s outputDirectory/snpma.fasta             expectedResults/snpma.fasta
diff -q -s outputDirectory/referenceSNP.fasta      expectedResults/referenceSNP.fasta
diff -q -s outputDirectory/snp_distance_matrix.tsv expectedResults/snp_distance_matrix.tsv
diff -q -s outputDirectory/snplist_preserved.txt             expectedResults/snplist_preserved.txt
diff -q -s outputDirectory/snpma_preserved.fasta             expectedResults/snpma_preserved.fasta
diff -q -s outputDirectory/referenceSNP_preserved.fasta      expectedResults/referenceSNP_preserved.fasta
diff -q -s outputDirectory/snp_distance_matrix_preserved.tsv expectedResults/snp_distance_matrix_preserved.tsv

# View the per-sample metrics
xdg-open outputDirectory/metrics.tsv

Step-by-Step Workflows

The run_snp_pipeline.sh script described above provides a simplified interface for running all the pipeline steps from a single command. If you need more control over the inputs, outputs, or processing steps, you can run the pipeline one step at a time.

The sections below give detailed examples of workflows you can run with the component tools of the pipeline.

Step-by-Step Workflow - Lambda Virus

The SNP Pipeline software distribution includes a small Lambda Virus data set that can be quickly processed to verify the basic functionality of the software.

Step 1 - Gather data:

# The SNP Pipeline distribution includes sample data organized as shown below:
snppipeline/data/lambdaVirusInputs/reference/lambda_virus.fasta
snppipeline/data/lambdaVirusInputs/samples/sample1/sample1_1.fastq
snppipeline/data/lambdaVirusInputs/samples/sample1/sample1_2.fastq
snppipeline/data/lambdaVirusInputs/samples/sample2/sample2_1.fastq
snppipeline/data/lambdaVirusInputs/samples/sample2/sample2_2.fastq
snppipeline/data/lambdaVirusInputs/samples/sample3/sample3_1.fastq
snppipeline/data/lambdaVirusInputs/samples/sample3/sample3_2.fastq
snppipeline/data/lambdaVirusInputs/samples/sample4/sample4_1.fastq
snppipeline/data/lambdaVirusInputs/samples/sample4/sample4_2.fastq

# Copy the supplied test data to a work area:
cd test
cfsan_snp_pipeline data lambdaVirusInputs testLambdaVirus
cd testLambdaVirus

Step 2 - Prep work:

# Create files of sample directories and fastQ files:
ls -d samples/* > sampleDirectories.txt
rm sampleFullPathNames.txt 2>/dev/null
cat sampleDirectories.txt | while read dir; do echo $dir/*.fastq* >> sampleFullPathNames.txt; done
# Determine the number of CPU cores in your computer
numCores=$(grep -c ^processor /proc/cpuinfo 2>/dev/null || sysctl -n hw.ncpu)

Step 3 - Prep the reference:

cfsan_snp_pipeline index_ref reference/lambda_virus.fasta

Step 4 - Align the samples to the reference:

# Align each sample, one at a time, using all CPU cores
export Bowtie2Align_ExtraParams="--reorder -X 1000"
cat sampleFullPathNames.txt | xargs -n 2 -L 1 cfsan_snp_pipeline map_reads reference/lambda_virus.fasta

Step 5 - Find the sites having high-confidence SNPs:

# Process the samples in parallel using all CPU cores
export VarscanMpileup2snp_ExtraParams="--min-var-freq 0.90"
cat sampleDirectories.txt | xargs -n 1 -P $numCores cfsan_snp_pipeline call_sites reference/lambda_virus.fasta

Step 6 - Identify regions with abnormal SNP density and remove SNPs in these regions:

cfsan_snp_pipeline filter_regions -n var.flt.vcf sampleDirectories.txt reference/lambda_virus.fasta

Step 7 - Combine the SNP positions across all samples into the SNP list file:

cfsan_snp_pipeline merge_sites -n var.flt.vcf -o snplist.txt sampleDirectories.txt sampleDirectories.txt.OrigVCF.filtered
cfsan_snp_pipeline merge_sites -n var.flt_preserved.vcf -o snplist_preserved.txt sampleDirectories.txt sampleDirectories.txt.PresVCF.filtered

Step 8 - Call the consensus base at SNP positions for each sample:

# Process the samples in parallel using all CPU cores
cat sampleDirectories.txt | xargs -n 1 -P $numCores -I XX cfsan_snp_pipeline call_consensus -l snplist.txt --vcfFileName consensus.vcf -o XX/consensus.fasta XX/reads.all.pileup
cat sampleDirectories.txt | xargs -n 1 -P $numCores -I XX cfsan_snp_pipeline call_consensus -l snplist_preserved.txt --vcfFileName consensus_preserved.vcf -o XX/consensus_preserved.fasta -e XX/var.flt_removed.vcf XX/reads.all.pileup

Step 9 - Create the SNP matrix:

cfsan_snp_pipeline snp_matrix -c consensus.fasta -o snpma.fasta sampleDirectories.txt.OrigVCF.filtered
cfsan_snp_pipeline snp_matrix -c consensus_preserved.fasta -o snpma_preserved.fasta sampleDirectories.txt.PresVCF.filtered

Step 10 - Create the reference base sequence:

cfsan_snp_pipeline snp_reference -l snplist.txt -o referenceSNP.fasta reference/lambda_virus.fasta
cfsan_snp_pipeline snp_reference -l snplist_preserved.txt -o referenceSNP_preserved.fasta reference/lambda_virus.fasta

Step 11 - Collect metrics for each sample:

cat sampleDirectories.txt | xargs -n 1 -P $numCores -I XX cfsan_snp_pipeline collect_metrics -o XX/metrics XX reference/lambda_virus.fasta

Step 12 - Tabulate the metrics for all samples:

cfsan_snp_pipeline combine_metrics -n metrics -o metrics.tsv sampleDirectories.txt

Step 13 - Merge the VCF files for all samples into a multi-sample VCF file:

cfsan_snp_pipeline merge_vcfs -n consensus.vcf -o snpma.vcf sampleDirectories.txt.OrigVCF.filtered
cfsan_snp_pipeline merge_vcfs -n consensus_preserved.vcf -o snpma_preserved.vcf sampleDirectories.txt.PresVCF.filtered

Step 14 - Compute the SNP distances between samples:

cfsan_snp_pipeline distance -p snp_distance_pairwise.tsv -m snp_distance_matrix.tsv snpma.fasta
cfsan_snp_pipeline distance -p snp_distance_pairwise_preserved.tsv -m snp_distance_matrix_preserved.tsv snpma_preserved.fasta

Step 15 - View and verify the results:

Upon successful completion of the pipeline, the snplist.txt file should have 165 entries. The SNP Matrix can be found in snpma.fasta. The corresponding reference bases are in the referenceSNP.fasta file:

# Verify the result files were created
ls -l snplist.txt
ls -l snpma.fasta
ls -l snpma.vcf
ls -l referenceSNP.fasta
ls -l snp_distance_matrix.tsv
ls -l snplist_preserved.txt
ls -l snpma_preserved.fasta
ls -l snpma_preserved.vcf
ls -l referenceSNP_preserved.fasta
ls -l snp_distance_matrix_preserved.tsv

# Verify correct results
cfsan_snp_pipeline data lambdaVirusExpectedResults expectedResults
diff -q -s snplist.txt             expectedResults/snplist.txt
diff -q -s snpma.fasta             expectedResults/snpma.fasta
diff -q -s referenceSNP.fasta      expectedResults/referenceSNP.fasta
diff -q -s snp_distance_matrix.tsv expectedResults/snp_distance_matrix.tsv
diff -q -s snplist_preserved.txt             expectedResults/snplist_preserved.txt
diff -q -s snpma_preserved.fasta             expectedResults/snpma_preserved.fasta
diff -q -s referenceSNP_preserved.fasta      expectedResults/referenceSNP_preserved.fasta
diff -q -s snp_distance_matrix_preserved.tsv expectedResults/snp_distance_matrix_preserved.tsv

# View the per-sample metrics
xdg-open metrics.tsv

Step-by-Step Workflow - Salmonella Agona

The Salmonella Agona data set contains realistic sequences that can be processed in a reasonable amount of time. Due to the large size of real data, the sequences must be downloaded from the NCBI SRA. Follow the instructions below to download and process the data set.

Step 1 - Gather data:

# The SNP Pipeline distribution does not include the sample data, but does
#   include information about the sample data, as well as the reference
#   sequence.  The files are organized as shown below:
snppipeline/data/agonaInputs/sha256sumCheck
snppipeline/data/agonaInputs/reference/NC_011149.fasta
snppipeline/data/agonaInputs/sampleList

# Copy the supplied test data to a work area:
mkdir testAgona
cd testAgona
cfsan_snp_pipeline data agonaInputs .

# Create sample directories and download sample data from SRA at NCBI. Note that
#   we use the fastq-dump command from the NCBI SRA-toolkit to fetch sample
#   sequences. There are other ways to get the data, but the SRA-toolkit is
#   easy to install, and does a good job of downloading large files.
mkdir samples
< sampleList xargs -I % sh -c 'mkdir samples/%; fastq-dump --gzip --origfmt --split-files --outdir samples/% %;'

# Check the data
#   The original data was used to generate a hash as follows:
#     sha256sum reference/*.fasta samples/*/*.fastq > sha256sumCheck
#   The command below checks the downloaded data (and the reference sequence) against the
#     hashes that are saved in the sha256sumCheck file using sha256sum command, which is
#     generally available on unix systems.
sha256sum -c sha256sumCheck

Step 2 - Prep work:

# Create files of sample directories and fastQ files:
ls -d samples/* > sampleDirectories.txt
rm sampleFullPathNames.txt 2>/dev/null
cat sampleDirectories.txt | while read dir; do echo $dir/*.fastq* >> sampleFullPathNames.txt; done
# Determine the number of CPU cores in your computer
numCores=$(grep -c ^processor /proc/cpuinfo 2>/dev/null || sysctl -n hw.ncpu)

Step 3 - Prep the reference:

cfsan_snp_pipeline index_ref reference/NC_011149.fasta

Step 4 - Align the samples to the reference:

# Align each sample, one at a time, using all CPU cores
export Bowtie2Align_ExtraParams="--reorder -X 1000"
cat sampleFullPathNames.txt | xargs -n 2 -L 1 cfsan_snp_pipeline map_reads reference/NC_011149.fasta

Step 5 - Find the sites having high-confidence SNPs:

# Process the samples in parallel using all CPU cores
export VarscanMpileup2snp_ExtraParams="--min-var-freq 0.90"
cat sampleDirectories.txt | xargs -n 1 -P $numCores cfsan_snp_pipeline call_sites reference/NC_011149.fasta

Step 6 - Identify regions with abnormal SNP density and remove SNPs in these regions:

cfsan_snp_pipeline filter_regions -n var.flt.vcf sampleDirectories.txt reference/NC_011149.fasta

Step 7 - Combine the SNP positions across all samples into the SNP list file:

cfsan_snp_pipeline merge_sites -n var.flt.vcf -o snplist.txt sampleDirectories.txt sampleDirectories.txt.OrigVCF.filtered
cfsan_snp_pipeline merge_sites -n var.flt_preserved.vcf -o snplist_preserved.txt sampleDirectories.txt sampleDirectories.txt.PresVCF.filtered

Step 8 - Call the consensus base at SNP positions for each sample:

# Process the samples in parallel using all CPU cores
cat sampleDirectories.txt | xargs -n 1 -P $numCores -I XX cfsan_snp_pipeline call_consensus -l snplist.txt --vcfFileName consensus.vcf -o XX/consensus.fasta XX/reads.all.pileup
cat sampleDirectories.txt | xargs -n 1 -P $numCores -I XX cfsan_snp_pipeline call_consensus -l snplist_preserved.txt --vcfFileName consensus_preserved.vcf -o XX/consensus_preserved.fasta -e XX/var.flt_removed.vcf XX/reads.all.pileup

Step 9 - Create the SNP matrix:

cfsan_snp_pipeline snp_matrix -c consensus.fasta -o snpma.fasta sampleDirectories.txt.OrigVCF.filtered
cfsan_snp_pipeline snp_matrix -c consensus_preserved.fasta -o snpma_preserved.fasta sampleDirectories.txt.PresVCF.filtered

Step 10 - Create the reference base sequence:

cfsan_snp_pipeline snp_reference -l snplist.txt -o referenceSNP.fasta reference/NC_011149.fasta
cfsan_snp_pipeline snp_reference -l snplist_preserved.txt -o referenceSNP_preserved.fasta reference/NC_011149.fasta

Step 11 - Collect metrics for each sample:

cat sampleDirectories.txt | xargs -n 1 -P $numCores -I XX cfsan_snp_pipeline collect_metrics -o XX/metrics XX reference/NC_011149.fasta

Step 12 - Tabulate the metrics for all samples:

cfsan_snp_pipeline combine_metrics -n metrics -o metrics.tsv sampleDirectories.txt

Step 13 - Merge the VCF files for all samples into a multi-sample VCF file:

cfsan_snp_pipeline merge_vcfs -n consensus.vcf -o snpma.vcf sampleDirectories.txt.OrigVCF.filtered
cfsan_snp_pipeline merge_vcfs -n consensus_preserved.vcf -o snpma_preserved.vcf sampleDirectories.txt.PresVCF.filtered

Step 14 - Compute the SNP distances between samples:

cfsan_snp_pipeline distance -p snp_distance_pairwise.tsv -m snp_distance_matrix.tsv snpma.fasta
cfsan_snp_pipeline distance -p snp_distance_pairwise_preserved.tsv -m snp_distance_matrix_preserved.tsv snpma_preserved.fasta

Step 15 - View and verify the results:

Upon successful completion of the pipeline, the snplist.txt file should have 3121 entries. The SNP Matrix can be found in snpma.fasta. The corresponding reference bases are in the referenceSNP.fasta file:

# Verify the result files were created
ls -l snplist.txt
ls -l snpma.fasta
ls -l snpma.vcf
ls -l referenceSNP.fasta
ls -l snp_distance_matrix.tsv
ls -l snplist_preserved.txt
ls -l snpma_preserved.fasta
ls -l snpma_preserved.vcf
ls -l referenceSNP_preserved.fasta
ls -l snp_distance_matrix_preserved.tsv

# Verify correct results
cfsan_snp_pipeline data agonaExpectedResults expectedResults
diff -q -s snplist.txt             expectedResults/snplist.txt
diff -q -s snpma.fasta             expectedResults/snpma.fasta
diff -q -s referenceSNP.fasta      expectedResults/referenceSNP.fasta
diff -q -s snp_distance_matrix.tsv expectedResults/snp_distance_matrix.tsv
diff -q -s snplist_preserved.txt             expectedResults/snplist_preserved.txt
diff -q -s snpma_preserved.fasta             expectedResults/snpma_preserved.fasta
diff -q -s referenceSNP_preserved.fasta      expectedResults/referenceSNP_preserved.fasta
diff -q -s snp_distance_matrix_preserved.tsv expectedResults/snp_distance_matrix_preserved.tsv

# View the per-sample metrics
xdg-open metrics.tsv

Step-by-Step Workflow - General Case

Step 1 - Gather data:

You will need the following data:

  • Reference genome
  • Fastq input files for multiple samples

Organize the data into separate directories for each sample as well as the reference. One possible directory layout is shown below. Note the mix of paired and unpaired samples:

./myProject/reference/my_reference.fasta
./myProject/samples/sample1/sampleA.fastq
./myProject/samples/sample2/sampleB.fastq
./myProject/samples/sample3/sampleC_1.fastq
./myProject/samples/sample3/sampleC_2.fastq
./myProject/samples/sample4/sampleD_1.fastq
./myProject/samples/sample4/sampleD_2.fastq

Step 2 - Prep work:

# Optional step: Copy your input data to a safe place:
cp -r myProject myProjectClean
# The SNP pipeline will generate additional files into the reference and sample directories
cd myProject

# Create file of sample directories:
ls -d samples/* > sampleDirectories.txt

# get the *.fastq or *.fq files in each sample directory, possibly compresessed, on one line per sample, ready to feed to bowtie
TMPFILE1=$(mktemp tmp.fastqs.XXXXXXXX)
cat sampleDirectories.txt | while read dir; do echo $dir/*.fastq* >> $TMPFILE1; echo $dir/*.fq* >> $TMPFILE1; done
grep -v '*.fq*' $TMPFILE1 | grep -v '*.fastq*' > sampleFullPathNames.txt
rm $TMPFILE1

# Determine the number of CPU cores in your computer
numCores=$(grep -c ^processor /proc/cpuinfo 2>/dev/null || sysctl -n hw.ncpu)

Step 3 - Prep the reference:

cfsan_snp_pipeline index_ref reference/my_reference.fasta

Step 4 - Align the samples to the reference:

# Align each sample, one at a time, using all CPU cores
export Bowtie2Align_ExtraParams="--reorder -X 1000"
cat sampleFullPathNames.txt | xargs -n 2 -L 1 cfsan_snp_pipeline map_reads reference/my_reference.fasta

Step 5 - Find the sites having high-confidence SNPs:

# Process the samples in parallel using all CPU cores
export VarscanMpileup2snp_ExtraParams="--min-var-freq 0.90"
cat sampleDirectories.txt | xargs -n 1 -P $numCores cfsan_snp_pipeline call_sites reference/my_reference.fasta

Step 6 - Identify regions with abnormal SNP density and remove SNPs in these regions:

cfsan_snp_pipeline filter_regions -n var.flt.vcf sampleDirectories.txt reference/my_reference.fasta

Step 7 - Combine the SNP positions across all samples into the SNP list file:

cfsan_snp_pipeline merge_sites -n var.flt.vcf -o snplist.txt sampleDirectories.txt sampleDirectories.txt.OrigVCF.filtered
cfsan_snp_pipeline merge_sites -n var.flt_preserved.vcf -o snplist_preserved.txt sampleDirectories.txt sampleDirectories.txt.PresVCF.filtered

Step 8 - Call the consensus base at SNP positions for each sample:

# Process the samples in parallel using all CPU cores
cat sampleDirectories.txt | xargs -n 1 -P $numCores -I XX cfsan_snp_pipeline call_consensus -l snplist.txt --vcfFileName consensus.vcf -o XX/consensus.fasta XX/reads.all.pileup
cat sampleDirectories.txt | xargs -n 1 -P $numCores -I XX cfsan_snp_pipeline call_consensus -l snplist_preserved.txt --vcfFileName consensus_preserved.vcf -o XX/consensus_preserved.fasta -e XX/var.flt_removed.vcf XX/reads.all.pileup

Step 9 - Create the SNP matrix:

cfsan_snp_pipeline snp_matrix -c consensus.fasta -o snpma.fasta sampleDirectories.txt.OrigVCF.filtered
cfsan_snp_pipeline snp_matrix -c consensus_preserved.fasta -o snpma_preserved.fasta sampleDirectories.txt.PresVCF.filtered

Step 10 - Create the reference base sequence:

# Note the .fasta file extension
cfsan_snp_pipeline snp_reference -l snplist.txt -o referenceSNP.fasta reference/my_reference.fasta
cfsan_snp_pipeline snp_reference -l snplist_preserved.txt -o referenceSNP_preserved.fasta reference/my_reference.fasta

Step 11 - Collect metrics for each sample:

cat sampleDirectories.txt | xargs -n 1 -P $numCores -I XX cfsan_snp_pipeline collect_metrics -o XX/metrics XX reference/my_reference.fasta

Step 12 - Tabulate the metrics for all samples:

cfsan_snp_pipeline combine_metrics -n metrics -o metrics.tsv sampleDirectories.txt

Step 13 - Merge the VCF files for all samples into a multi-sample VCF file:

cfsan_snp_pipeline merge_vcfs -n consensus.vcf -o snpma.vcf sampleDirectories.txt.OrigVCF.filtered
cfsan_snp_pipeline merge_vcfs -n consensus_preserved.vcf -o snpma_preserved.vcf sampleDirectories.txt.PresVCF.filtered

Step 14 - Compute the SNP distances between samples:

cfsan_snp_pipeline distance -p snp_distance_pairwise.tsv -m snp_distance_matrix.tsv snpma.fasta
cfsan_snp_pipeline distance -p snp_distance_pairwise_preserved.tsv -m snp_distance_matrix_preserved.tsv snpma.fasta

Step 15 - View the results:

Upon successful completion of the pipeline, the snplist.txt identifies the SNP positions in all samples. The SNP Matrix can be found in snpma.fasta. The corresponding reference bases are in the referenceSNP.fasta file:

ls -l snplist.txt
ls -l snpma.fasta
ls -l snpma.vcf
ls -l referenceSNP.fasta
ls -l snp_distance_matrix.tsv
ls -l snplist_preserved.txt
ls -l snpma_preserved.fasta
ls -l snpma_preserved.vcf
ls -l referenceSNP_preserved.fasta
ls -l snp_distance_matrix_preserved.tsv

# View the per-sample metrics
xdg-open metrics.tsv

Duplicate Read Removal

Prior to creating the pileup and calling snps, the pipeline detects and removes duplicate reads from the sample BAM files. When duplicates are found, the highest quality read among the duplicates is retained. Removing duplicate reads slightly reduces the depth of coverage in pileups and will sometimes impact the number of called snps. The number of called snps could either increase or decrease depending on whether reference-supporting or variant-supporting reads are removed. Removing duplicate reads impacts the subsequent application of virtually all snp filters: depth, variant allele frequency, strand bias, strand depth, and high density snp filtering.

Duplicate reads are removed with the Picard software tool which must be installed for this functionality.

You can disable this step and keep the duplicate reads by configuring the SnpPipeline_RemoveDuplicateReads parameter in the configuration file.

You can customize the picard MarkDuplicates behavior to some extent by configuring the PicardMarkDuplicates_ExtraParams parameter in the configuration file.

Duplicate read removal works best when the read names in the fastq files are in the original Illumina format. When downloading fastq files from NCBI with fastq-dump, you should use the --origfmt command line option. See Why are there no optical duplicates?

If you see No space left on device errors, you should set either the TMPDIR or TMP_DIR environment variable to a directory with plenty of space for temp files:

export TMPDIR=/scratch/tmp

More information about the Picard MarkDuplicates tool can be found here:

See also Configuration.

SNP Filtering

The SNP Pipeline removes abnormal SNPs from the ends of contigs and from regions where many SNPs are found in close proximity. The pipeline runs both ways, with SNP filtering, and without SNP filtering, generating pairs of output files. You can compare the output files to determine which positions were filtered. The filtered output files are named with the _preserved suffix, for example:

  • snplist.txt : contains the unfiltered SNP positions with abnormal SNPs included
  • snplist_preserved.txt : contains the filtered SNP positions without abnormal SNPs
  • snpma.fasta : contains the unfiltered SNP matrix with abnormal SNPs included
  • snpma_preserved.fasta : contains the filtered SNP matrix without abnormal SNPs

Other output files are named similarly.

The SNP filtering is performed by the filter_regions command. It runs after the phase 1 SNP detection and impacts all subsequent processing steps. Abnormal regions are identified in each sample individually, and then SNPs in those regions are removed from all samples. Therefore, if you add or remove a sample from your analysis it may affect the final SNPs detected in all other samples. See filter_regions.

The sensitivity of the SNP filtering can be controlled with parameters in the configuration file by setting values in RemoveAbnormalSnp_ExtraParams. You can control the length of end-of-contig trimming, dense region window size, and maximum snps allowed within the window. See Configuration.

SNP Filtering With Outgroups

If there is an outgroup among the samples, you should configure the pipeline to exclude the outgroup samples from snp filtering. To exclude the outgroup samples:

First, make a file containing the sample ids of the outgroup samples, one sample id per line. The sample id is the name of the last subdirectory in the path to the sample:

SRR1556289
SRR1556294

Grab the default configuration file:

cfsan_snp_pipeline data configurationFile

Edit snppipeline.conf, and change the RemoveAbnormalSnp_ExtraParams parameter:

Add the --out_group option with the path to the file containing the outgroup sample ids.

Then run the snp pipeline with the -c command line options:

run_snp_pipeline.sh -c snppipeline.conf  -s mySamplesDir myReference.fasta

See also Configuration.

Excessive SNPs

Samples having many SNPs relative to the reference can slow the performance of the SNP Pipeline and greatly increase the size of the SNP matrix. The SNP Pipeline has the capability to exclude samples from processing when those samples have too many SNPs. This function excludes entire samples, not just regions within a sample. The samples with excessive SNPs exceeding a user-specified limit are excluded from the snp list, snp matrix, and snpma.vcf files.

There is also an indicator in the metrics file to identify the samples that have too many SNPs. A column in the metrics.tsv file, Excluded_Sample, indicates when a sample has been excluded from the snp matrix. This column is normally blank. See Metrics.

To exclude samples with excessive SNPs:

Grab the default configuration file:

cfsan_snp_pipeline data configurationFile

Edit snppipeline.conf, and change this setting:

SnpPipeline_MaxSnps=1000  # substitute your threshold value here, or -1 to disable this function

Then run the pipeline with the -c command line option:

run_snp_pipeline.sh -c snppipeline.conf -s mySamplesDir myReference.fasta

See also Configuration.

Metrics

After creating the SNP matrix, the pipeline collects and tabulates metrics for all of the samples. The metrics are first collected in one file per sample in the sample directories. A subsequent step combines the metrics for all the samples together into a single tab-separated file with one row per sample and one column per metric. The tabulated metrics file is named metrics.tsv by default.

The metrics are:

Column
Description
Sample
The name of the directory containing the sample fastq files.
Fastq Files
Comma separated list of fastq file names in the sample
directory.
Fastq File Size
The sum of the sizes of the fastq files. This will be the
compressed size if the files are compressed.
Machine
The sequencing instrument ID extracted from the compressed
fastq.gz file header. If the fastq files are not compressed,
the machine ID is not captured.
Flowcell
The flowcell used during the sequencing run, extracted from
the compressed fastq.gz file header. If the fastq files are
not compressed, the flowcell is not captured.
Number of Reads
The number of reads in the SAM file. When using paired fastq
files, this number will be twice the number of reads reported
by bowtie.
Duplicate Reads
The number of reads marked as duplicates. These reads are not
included in the pileup and are not used to call snps. When
a set of duplicate reads is found, only the highest-quality
read in the set is retained.
Percent of Reads Mapped
The percentage of reference-aligned reads in the SAM file.
Average Insert Size
The average observed template length of mapped paired reads as
captured by SAMtools view TLEN value. This metric is not
calculated for unpaired reads.
Average Pileup Depth
The average depth of coverage in the sample pileup file. This
is calculated as the sum of the depth of the pileup across all
pileup positions divided by the number of positions in the
reference.
Phase1 SNPs
The number of phase 1 SNPs found for this sample. The count
is computed as the number of SNP records in the VCF file
generated by the phase 1 snp caller (VarScan).
Phase1 Preserved SNPs
The number of phase 1 SNPs found by VarScan and preserved by
SNP Filtering. The count is computed as the number of SNP
records in the preserved VCF file generated by the
filter_regions command.
Phase2 SNPs
The number of phase 2 SNPs found for this sample. The count
is computed as the number of SNP records in the VCF file
generated by the consensus caller.
Phase2 Preserved SNPs
The number of phase 2 SNPs found for this sample and preserved
by SNP Filtering. The count is computed as the number of SNP
records in the preserved VCF file generated by the consensus
caller.
Missing SNP Matrix Positions
The number of positions in the SNP matrix for which a
consensus base could not be called for this sample. The
inability to call a consensus base is caused by either a
pileup file with no coverage at a SNP position, or by
insufficient agreement among the pileup bases at the SNP
position. The minimum fraction of reads that must agree at a
position to make a consensus call is controlled by the
minConsFreq parameter.
Missing Preserved SNP Matrix Positions
The number of positions in the preserved SNP matrix for which
a consensus base could not be called for this sample. The
inability to call a consensus base is caused by either a
pileup file with no coverage at a SNP position, or by
insufficient agreement among the pileup bases at the SNP
position. The minimum fraction of reads that must agree at a
position to make a consensus call is controlled by the
minConsFreq parameter.
Excluded Sample
When a sample has an excessive number of snps exceeding the
SnpPipeline_MaxSnps parameter value, this metric will have
the value Excluded. Otherwise, this metric is blank.
Excluded Preserved Sample
When a sample has an excessive number of preserved snps
exceeding the SnpPipeline_MaxSnps parameter value, this
metric will have the value Excluded. Otherwise, this
metric is blank.
Warnings and Errors
A list of warnings or errors encountered while collecting the
metrics.

Error Handling

The SNP Pipeline detects errors during execution and prevents execution of subsequent steps when earlier steps fail. A summary of errors is written to the error.log file. Detailed error messages are found in the log files for each process. See Logging.

By default, the SNP Pipeline is configured to stop when execution errors occur. However, it is possible some errors may affect only individual samples and other samples can still be processed. If you want the pipeline to continue processing after an error affecting only a single sample has occurred, you can try disabling the SnpPipeline_StopOnSampleError configuration parameter (not recommended). See Configuration. When SnpPipeline_StopOnSampleError is false the pipeline will attempt to continue subsequent processing steps when an error does not affect all samples. Errors are logged in the error.log file regardless of how the SnpPipeline_StopOnSampleError parameter is configured. You should review the error.log after running the pipeline to see a summary of any errors detected during execution.

Note: currently, when using the Torque job queue manager, the pipeline will always stop on errors regardless of the SnpPipeline_StopOnSampleError parameter setting.

When errors stop the execution of the pipeline on Grid Engine or Torque, other non-failing jobs in progress will continue until complete. However, subsequent job steps will not execute and instead will remain in the queue. On Grid Engine qstat will show output like the following:

3038927 0.55167 alignSampl app_sdavis   Eqw   01/15/2016 16:50:03
3038928 0.00000 prepSample app_sdavis   hqw   01/15/2016 16:50:04
3038929 0.00000 snpList    app_sdavis   hqw   01/15/2016 16:50:04
3038930 0.00000 callConsen app_sdavis   hqw   01/15/2016 16:50:04
3038931 0.00000 snpMatrix  app_sdavis   hqw   01/15/2016 16:50:04
3038932 0.00000 snpReferen app_sdavis   hqw   01/15/2016 16:50:04
3038933 0.00000 mergeVcf   app_sdavis   hqw   01/15/2016 16:50:05
3038934 0.00000 collectMet app_sdavis   hqw   01/15/2016 16:50:05
3038935 0.00000 combineMet app_sdavis   hqw   01/15/2016 16:50:05

To clear the jobs from the queue on Grid Engine:

seq 3038927 3038935 | xargs -I @ qdel @