The most common use of the VarSeq Match Gene List algorithm of course is to determine if the variants in your data set are contained within your genes of interest. As an example of this, say you are working with a whole exome trio and only want to consider those variants that are contained within the 56 genes recommended by… Read more »
As VarSeq’s adoption has grown among analysts using whole exome data to diagnose rare diseases, a couple of family designs outside of the common trio of an affected child and both parents have come up frequently. While having both parents provides the maximum power to discover de novo mutations and recessively inherited variants, it is not always possible to contact… Read more »
With the release of VarSeq 1.3.1 we have included a new demo project to showcase a single tumor-normal pair analysis workflow. The project can be accessed through VarSeq and VarSeq Viewer by going to File > Open Example Projects > Example Tumor-Normal Pair Analysis. This project contains an exome pair (Normal-N990005 and Tumor-T990005) from the Gastric Cancer study Exome sequencing of… Read more »
With the release of VSReports, we added the ability to “select” rows of your filtered output (often variants, but potentially things like coverage regions or genes) with a new feature dubbed “Record Sets”, but more often described as “colored checkboxes” for your tables. Although necessary for the important task of marking primary, secondary or other sets of variants for a… Read more »
Give our SVS viewer a try today! Interested in seeing what the SNP & Variation Suite (SVS) software can do? Download the free SVS Viewer! With the SVS Viewer, you can explore and interact with the workflows of a pre-built projects. To get you started, we have included a SNP GWAS project for you to download. And don’t worry, it is… Read more »
While VarSeq comes with a number of starter workflows that are stored as templates, customers also have the option of creating filter chains from scratch; analyzing a single exome may require you to do exactly that. In this blog, I’ll go through analyzing a single exome and generating a list of variants for further study. After importing the variant data… Read more »
We are pleased to announce that another one of the most asked for features is going to be a part of our SNP & Variation Suite™ software, Gene by Environment Interaction Regression (also known as GxE Regression). Earlier this year other highly asked for features were added to SVS including applying a prediction model to a new dataset, cross-validation for… Read more »
A prerequisite for clinical NGS interpretation is ensuring that the data being analyzed is of high enough quality to support the test results being returned to the physician. The keystone of this quality control process is coverage analysis. Coverage analysis has two distinct parts. Ensure that there is sufficient coverage to be confident in called variants Make certain that no… Read more »
VarSeq now supports analysis of paired Tumor/Normal samples! Tumor/Normal support has been one of the most common feature requests for VarSeq since it was launched late last year, and we are excited to make this functionality available to all of our VarSeq users in the latest update (version 1.1.4). VarSeq is a powerful platform for annotation and filtering of DNA… Read more »
One of the lesser known functions in SVS allows the user to create Venn diagrams comparing variants found in multiple spreadsheets. These different spreadsheets could come from individuals samples, a case vs. control group or several variant databases. It is a helpful tool for visually comparing different variants. Start by creating spreadsheets for each group/samples you’d like to compare. The… Read more »
There are many approaches that one might use to define a variant as potentially deleterious. For example, we often see analysis workflows based on rare, non-synonymous variants, perhaps incorporating additional annotation sources that capture known or predicted consequences of coding variants. Annotations for coding regions of the genome are relatively abundant and familiar to genome scientists. We are comfortable in… Read more »
Our VarSeq as a Clinical Platform webcast last week highlighted some recent updates in VarSeq that support gene panel screenings and rare variant diagnostics. The webcast generated some good questions, and I wanted to share them with you. If the questions below spark new questions or need clarification, feel free to get in touch with us at info@goldenhelix.com. Question: Should… Read more »
Over 650 GenomeBrowse licenses have been registered and downloaded since the beginning of 2015, and with so many people enjoying the utility of this freeware program, I wanted to showcase some advanced tips and tricks so you can get more out of GenomeBrowse! Under the Controls panel, when you’re clicked inside a data plot, there is a “Filter” tab. This… Read more »
I am constantly on the lookout for fun or interesting datasets to analyze in SVS or VarSeq and recently came across a study looking into inherited cardiac conduction disease in an extended family (Lai et al. 2013). The researchers sequenced the exomes from five family members including three affected siblings and their unaffected mother and an unaffected child of one… Read more »
Last month, Dr. Bryce Christensen presented Population-Based DNA Variant Analysis via webcast. The webcast reviewed the fundamentals of population-based variant analysis and demonstrated some of the tools available in SVS for analysis of both common and rare variants such as the SKAT-O method, as well as other functions for annotation, visualization, quality control and statistical analysis of DNA sequence variants. Here… Read more »
Our Genomic Prediction webcast in December discussed using Bayes-C pi and Genomic Best Linear Unbiased Predictors (GBLUP) to predict phenotypic traits from genotypes in order to identify the plants or animals with the best breeding potential for desirable traits. The webcast generated a lot of good questions as our webcasts generally do. I decided to begin to share these Q&A… Read more »
One frequent question I hear from SVS customers is whether whole exome sequence data can be used for principal components analysis (PCA) and other applications in population genetics. The answer is, “yes, but you need to be cautious.” What does cautious mean? Let’s take a look at the 1000 Genomes project for some examples.
If you’ve seen the recent webinars given by Gabe Rudy and Bryce Christensen, you’ve no doubt been impressed by the capabilities of VarSeq when it comes to annotation and filtering. However, we sometimes forget that the power that enables all this complex analysis can also be used in more mundane tasks like VCF subsetting. And although these day-to-day tasks don’t… Read more »
A helpful tool that is included in SVS, but many of our customers may not know about, is the ability to create Box Plots or box-and-whisker plots. These are effective visualizations for comparing groups of numerical data through the data quartiles. I’ll take you through a couple different cases with examples.
Genomic research is exploding. There is a plethora of new methods and workflows for research and clinical use. While we are a software company at heart, we find ourselves in the role of educators. Our customer interactions are about informing, teaching, and consulting. A few years back, we started with regular webcasts that took this idea to the next level…. Read more »
