Research

Evaluates genome assembly quality across the three orthogonal axes - contiguity (QUAST auN/NG50/NGx, not bare N50), completeness (BUSCO/compleasm gene-space plus Merqury k-mer completeness), and correctness (reference-free Merqury QV, Inspector/CRAQ structural errors, asmgene false-duplication/collapse). Covers why N50 is the most-gamed metric, why QV measured on the polishing reads is circular, distinguishing uncollapsed haplotigs from real WGD, and the EBP/VGP 6.C.Q40 standard. Use when jud...

Discovers, classifies, and masks repetitive elements and transposable elements with RepeatModeler2 (de novo family library), RepeatMasker (masking against a library), EDTA (plant/structural TEs), or EarlGrey (auto-curating wrapper), and quantifies TE expression from RNA-seq with TEtranscripts/SQuIRE. Covers de-novo-library-as-curation-project, soft-vs-hard masking, the domesticated-gene over-masking massacre, Dfam-vs-RepBase, TE classification (Class I/II, family-vs-copy), Kimura repeat lands...

Assigns GO terms, Pfam/InterPro domains, KEGG orthologs, EC numbers, and product names to predicted proteins using eggNOG-mapper (orthology), InterProScan (domain signatures), and KofamScan (KEGG), routing specialized functions to dbCAN/antiSMASH/AMRFinderPlus/SignalP. Covers the orthology-vs-domain-vs-homology paradigms, the annotation-error percolation cascade, domain-presence-is-not-function, GO IEA circularity in enrichment, evidence tiering, and bit-score/coverage thresholds. Use when ad...

Transfers gene annotations between genome assemblies via coordinate liftover (UCSC liftOver, CrossMap for same-species version updates) or feature/sequence projection (Liftoff for same/close species, miniprot for protein-level cross-species, TOGA/GeMoMa/CAT for distant clades). Covers the coordinate-vs-projection decision by divergence, why a successful lift is not biological confirmation, reference bias, the silent-dropping of unmapped features, build/PAR/MHC/inversion hazards, and transfer-...

Assesses the quality and completeness of a genome annotation with BUSCO (conserved single-copy ortholog recovery), OMArk (proteome completeness, consistency, and contamination), CheckM2 (prokaryotic completeness/contamination), and a gene-set sanity panel (gene count, mono-exonic fraction, protein-length distribution, mRNA:gene ratio, coding density). Covers the assembly-BUSCO-vs-proteome-BUSCO diagnostic, what BUSCO-Duplicated really means, why gene count is a vanity metric, and the QC of tr...

Build enhancer-driven gene regulatory networks (eGRNs) by integrating single-cell RNA-seq and ATAC-seq using SCENIC+, CellOracle base GRNs, Pando, FigR, DIRECT-NET, TRIPOD, and scMEGA. Covers the accessibility-defines-enhancers principle, peak-to-gene linking and its cell-composition confound, the paired-vs-unpaired decision, and TF-region-gene eRegulon triplets. Use when analyzing 10x multiome or paired/unpaired scRNA+scATAC to infer cis-regulatory GRNs. For RNA-only regulons see scenic-regu...

Compare gene co-expression and regulatory networks between biological conditions to find rewired relationships using DiffCorr, DiffCoEx, DINGO/iDINGO, and CoDiNA. Covers the differential-connectivity-is-not-differential-expression distinction, the pairwise multiple-testing explosion, marginal vs partial (direct) rewiring, and the underpowered-rewiring failure mode. Use when comparing co-expression networks between disease vs control, treatment, or developmental stages, or finding hub genes th...

Build weighted gene co-expression networks to identify modules of co-regulated genes, relate them to phenotypes, and find hub genes using WGCNA, hdWGCNA, MEGENA, CEMiTool, and Gaussian graphical models. Covers signed-network choice, soft-threshold selection, module preservation, and the marginal-vs-partial-correlation distinction. Use when finding co-expression modules, identifying hub genes, relating gene networks to clinical or experimental traits, or building single-cell co-expression netw...

Defines cell populations in flow and spectral cytometry through manual gates (rectangle, polygon, quadrant, boolean) and reproducible automated gating (openCyto gating templates, flowDensity data-driven thresholds, flowClust model-based gates), organized as a hierarchical GatingSet (flowWorkspace) and round-tripped with FlowJo via CytoML. Covers the canonical gate order (time -> debris -> singlets -> live -> lineage), FMO-vs-isotype boundary setting, gate-order dependence and recompute semant...

Differential abundance (DA) and differential state (DS) analysis for flow and mass cytometry - tests which cell populations change in frequency or marker expression between conditions using diffcyt (edgeR/voom/GLMM for DA, limma/LMM for DS), with cydar, CITRUS, and compositional methods (sccomp, scCODA, DCATS) as alternatives. Covers the sample-is-the-experimental-unit principle, design/contrast and mixed-model formulas, compositionality of cluster proportions, and FDR across clusters. Use wh...

Quality control for flow, spectral, and mass cytometry - time-based anomaly cleaning (flowAI, flowCut, PeacoQC, flowClean), margin/boundary event removal, signal-drift detection, dead-cell exclusion, CyTOF Gaussian/DNA/event-length checks, instrument calibration/standardization (MESF, CS&T, peak-2), and batch-level outlier flagging. Use when assessing acquisition quality, choosing a cleaning tool, ordering QC relative to compensation, deciding margin removal before density-based steps, or fla...

Imports gene expression count matrices from featureCounts, HTSeq, STAR ReadsPerGene, Salmon/kallisto via tximport or tximeta, RSEM, 10X Genomics MTX/H5, AnnData H5AD, and RDS. Handles silent-miscounting traps (featureCounts -p v2.0.2 API break, STAR strandedness column choice, salmon NumReads-sum without tximport, RSEM non-integer expected_count, GENCODE _PAR_Y suffix, zero-length-transcript TPM divide-by-zero), and encodes the tximport countsFromAbundance decision tree with the "lengthScaled...

Structures biological experiments so inference is valid by construction, covering Fisher's principles (randomization, replication, local control), the experimental-vs-observational unit distinction and pseudoreplication (Hurlbert 1984; Lazic 2018), randomization mechanics (complete, restricted, stratified, rerandomization, run-order), blocking layouts (randomized complete block, Latin square, incomplete block), factorial designs and interactions, and the split-plot/nested error strata hidden ...

Calculates statistical power for high-dimensional genomics experiments (bulk RNA-seq, scRNA-seq, ATAC-seq, ChIP-seq, methylation, proteomics) under negative-binomial count models using RNASeqPower, PROPER, and simulation via powsimR, distinguishing per-gene from marginal (transcriptome-wide) power, the role of mean expression and dispersion, and the sequencing-depth-versus-replicate tradeoff. Covers simulation as the honest default for overdispersed counts, FDR-aware average power versus sing...

Controls error rates across thousands of simultaneous tests in genomics discovery using false-discovery-rate methods (Benjamini-Hochberg 1995; Benjamini-Yekutieli 2001 for arbitrary dependence; Storey q-value with pi0 estimation; local FDR; independent filtering Bourgon 2010; covariate-weighted FDR via IHW Ignatiadis 2016), plus family-wise error control (Bonferroni, Holm) and the GWAS genome-wide threshold. Covers the FDR-versus-FWER choice as the discovery-versus-confirmatory distinction, t...

Visualises RNA-modification data with transcript-feature metagene plots (Guitar GuitarPlot with 5'UTR / CDS / 3'UTR scaling; MetaPlotR; deepTools `computeMatrix scale-regions`), peak-centred heatmaps (ComplexHeatmap; deepTools plotHeatmap), IP-vs-input paired browser tracks (bigWig of log2 IP/input via deepTools `bamCompare`; ggcoverage; pyGenomeTracks; Gviz; IGV / UCSC track hubs), DRACH sequence-logo plots (ggseqlogo; MEME), 5'UTR / CDS / 3'UTR stacked-bar feature-distribution summaries, an...

Calls m6A peaks from MeRIP-seq / m6A-seq paired IP-vs-input data using exomePeak2 (transcript-aware, GC-bias-corrected Poisson GLM; Liu 2022 *NAR Genom Bioinform* 4:lqac046), MeTPeak (HMM over sliding windows; Cui 2016 *Bioinformatics* 32:i378), MACS3 / MACS2 with --nomodel --broad --keep-dup all (genome-wide broad alternative), and DRACH motif enrichment confirmation via HOMER or ggseqlogo as a sanity check (NOT a filter). Covers BED12 vs narrowPeak output formats, exonic vs intronic peak ha...

Estimates time-scaled phylogenies, molecular clock rates, effective reproduction number R_e (or R_t), and population dynamics from dated pathogen genomes using TreeTime (maximum-likelihood) and BEAST2 (Bayesian; strict / uncorrelated lognormal / ORC clocks; constant / exponential / Bayesian Skyline / Skygrid / BICEPS / Birth-Death-Skyline / sampled-ancestor BDSKY priors; structured coalescent via MASCOT). Covers root-to-tip clock signal QC via TempEst, date-randomisation tests (Ramsden 2009; ...

Assigns isolate identity at the right resolution for the question -- ANI / Mash species triage, 7-locus MLST historical comparability, cgMLST / wgMLST outbreak resolution (chewBBACA, BIGSdb, Ridom SeqSphere, EnteroBase HierCC), in-silico serotyping (SISTR, SeqSero2 for Salmonella; SerotypeFinder for E. coli; Kaptive K/O for Klebsiella; SeroBA for pneumococcus; spa + SCCmec for S. aureus), and lineage callers (TB-Profiler / Mykrobe Coll-Napier barcode for MTBC, Pangolin + Nextclade for SARS-Co...

Delimits putative species boundaries from molecular data within the de Queiroz 2007 unified-lineage framework using ASAP (Puillandre 2021 successor to ABGD), mPTP C++ (Kapli 2017 successor to bPTP; bPTP is Python NOT R), GMYC single/multi-threshold (Pons 2006; Fujisawa 2013), multilocus BPP v4 with prior calibration from data (NOT defaults; Yang 2015), SNAPP + BFD* for SNP delimitation, DELINEATE (Sukumaran 2021) speciation-process modeling to address Sukumaran & Knowles 2017 PNAS critique th...

Designs and analyzes pooled prime-editor (PE) screens for installing precise genetic variants without bystander confounding. Covers pegRNA design with PRIDICT and PRIDICT2 (Mathis 2023/2024) for predicting per-pegRNA editing efficiency, pegRNA architecture (spacer + scaffold + PBS + RTT), PE2 / PE3 / PE3b / PEmax / PEAR variants, MOSAIC in situ saturation mutagenesis (Hsu JY et al 2024 bioRxiv), the PRIME pooled-screen methodology (Erwood/Doman 2023 Nat Biotechnol 41:885; ~3,699 ClinVar varia...

Designs pooled sgRNA libraries for CRISPR knockout, interference (CRISPRi), activation (CRISPRa), Cas12a multiplex, base-editor, and prime-editor screens. Covers on-target scoring (Rule Set 2, Azimuth, DeepSpCas9, CRISPRon), off-target scoring (CFD, MIT), TSS-relative positioning for CRISPRi/a (Horlbeck, Dolcetto, Calabrese), PAM-variant chemistries, control-guide composition, oligo cloning architecture, and library QC. Use when choosing a genome-wide library (GeCKOv2 vs Avana vs Brunello vs ...

Cross-method decision tree for calling hits in pooled CRISPR screens. Catalogs statistical models (MAGeCK RRA, MAGeCK MLE, BAGEL2, drugZ, JACKS, Chronos, CERES), experimental designs each is built for, failure modes outside design domain, reconciliation when methods disagree, multiple-testing and effect-size thresholds, the order of operations (count -> QC -> CN-correct -> hit-call -> validate), the second-best-sgRNA conservative rule, and consensus-hit strategy. Use when choosing among MAGeC...

Annotate copy number variant segments with overlapping genes, dosage-sensitivity scores, cancer driver databases, population frequencies, and clinical-variant content. Covers bedtools/pybedtools interval intersection, AnnotSV comprehensive annotation and ranking, ClinGen haploinsufficiency/triplosensitivity scoring, gnomAD-SV/DGV frequency filtering, COSMIC Cancer Gene Census, and ClinVar overlap. Use when interpreting which genes a CNV affects, distinguishing the driver gene of a focal event...