Project 4: SNP finding

Due: Thursday May 11, 2017
Posted: May 2, 2017
Last Update: May 2, 2017

You will implement approximate string matching using a seed-and-check strategy based on exact matching using the Burrows-Wheeler transform. We are providing starter code to get you going. Instructions on implementation and code are here:

https://gitlab.umiacs.umd.edu/hcorrada/cmsc423_project4

I highly, highly recommend that you use git

To get code you will be using for this project using git:

git clone https://gitlab.umiacs.umd.edu/hcorrada/cmsc423_project4.git

This will create a project4 directory with all code and data required for this project.

Programming Questions

Check and submit your solution to Final Rosalind Problem 8 Rosalind final submission page.

Instructions on how to prepare your solution are given in project code repository.

SNP Finding

Use your code to analyze sequences for the neuraminidase Influenza gene (NA) of two H1N1 Human Influenza strains.

There are two FASTA files in directory data of the project repository. The reference.fa file contains a reference sequence you will use as the target string for approximate exact matching. The reads.fa file contains 50 bp reads you will use as queries. Use your approximate matching BWT solution to align reads to reference allowing up to 3 mismatches.

Question 1. A specific mutation (H275Y) in the NA gene confers resistance to Oseltamivir, making the drug less effective. A note about nomenclature: the code H275Y encodes a substitution in position 275 (1-based indexing), changing aminoacid H (Histidine) to Y (Tyrosine).

Do the reads correspond to a gene sequence with this mutation? How can you tell?

Notes:

  1. As we’ve done so far use the Biopython to read and import fasta files.
  2. The pileup.py script in the project repository can help you answer this question. You can get a list of mismatches found in reads, and the number of times each kind of mismatch is observed in each position as follows:
from pileup import PileUp
from approximate_matcher import ApproximateMatcher

# initialize object
am = ApproximateMatcher(reference)
pileup = PileUp(reference)
d = 3

for read in reads:
	# find approximate matching positions for a given read
	# assumes positions is a list (even if only a single match is found)
	# with matching positions
	positions = am.get_matches(read, d)
	if len(positions) > 0:
		# add to pileup object
		pileup.insert(positions, read)

# next statement prints out mismatching positions
# output is:
# (<position>, <reference_character>, [(<variant_character>,
# <num_times_aligned>)])
# argument filters mismatch by frequency in which variant character
# is observed, e.g., .01 means variant character has to be seen at least
# once for every 100 aligned nucleotides
pileup.print_mismatches(.01)

where positions are indices in the reference string where an approximate match for read was found.

How to submit

On ELMS you will submit two things

(1) A diff of your solution and the original code posted by us. Using git you can do this as follows once you have committed all your code changes in directory approximate_matcher. Note that you do not need to change code outside of this directory to solve the Rosalind problem:

git diff origin/master approximate_matcher > project4_bwt_code.patch

Submit file project4_bwt_code.patch on ELMS

(2) An IPython notebook exported as pdf or html containing your answer to Question 1 above along with code used to answer it. You have to use your approximate matching code from part I to match reads to the reference, otherwise, you are free to use Biopython as needed to answer this question. E.g., to do DNA->aminoacid translation.