As a lab or group scales the number of NGS samples analyzed, it is important to automate the sample analysis pipeline from the sequencer to the point where it is ready for a variant scientist or lab personnel to follow the interpretation workflow and draft a clinical report. VSPipeline leverages the core VarSeq capability to create reproducible test-specific workflows through… Read more »
The customer-published articles this October cite the range of Golden Helix’s VarSeq annotation range and capability. The following publications feature everything from annotating an Italian nobleman mummy, assisting in identifying mutations in primary congenital and juvenile glaucoma, new mutations associated with muscular dystrophinopathy, and germline variants associated with head and neck cancer. In each of these cases, VarSeq was utilized… Read more »
Recently we have released blog posts discussing updates to annotations in VarSeq such as ClinVar and COSMIC. Keeping with that trend, in this blog post, I will discuss the most recent updates to the Golden Helix CancerKB database. For those how may be unfamiliar with the Golden Helix CancerKB source, it is a professional curated set of interpretations for the… Read more »
Golden Helix VSClinical provides a guided workflow interface for following the ACMG and AMP guidelines to evaluate variants and CNVs for NGS tests. The output of this work is most often a lab-specific clinical report. Since it was introduced, we have provided a powerful Word-based templating system to allow labs the ability to generate customized reports to include specific content… Read more »
In the September 2021 monthly update to our curated ClinVar track, we made some changes that will result in roughly another 7,000 Likely Pathogenic and Pathogenic variants being available for annotation and use in the ACMG auto-classification system. Consensus Between Labs ClinVar has nearly one million unique variant classification records that are curated into multiple annotation tracks used in VarSeq and VSClinical on a monthly basis. Clinical… Read more »
Merging variant records, VCFs, across samples is important when performing trio or family analysis as it ensures that hereditary relationships can be properly inferred. There are many ways to represent a single variant. Insertions and deletions may be right or left aligned, prefixes and suffixes can be added, and adjacent variants in the same sample may be combined or split… Read more »
Clinical labs often maintain gene panels, which are lists of genes with evidence of disease association. These panels are used to prioritize variants and limit interpretations to a predefined set of test-specific genes. In general, gene panels should be stored independently of any specific project or interpretation, as it is common for an individual gene panel to be generally applicable… Read more »
In this month’s Customer Publication blog, I will highlight four studies that provided further insights into conditions that are typically identified in early childhood. As you will see as you read the summaries of each publication, both Golden Helix software platforms (VarSeq and SNP & Variation Suite or SVS for short) were instrumental in exploring the genetic factors that influence… Read more »
This blog post will cover an exciting new VSClinical feature in the upcoming VarSeq release. The ACMG Previously Interpreted Variants feature allows users to integrate databases of expert-curated variant interpretations into their VSClinical workflows. These data sources store variant-level interpretation data, including the classification, associated disorders, interpretation text, and scored criteria for each variant, along with notes providing a justification… Read more »
One of the many tricks of encoding so much functionality into so little space in eukaryotic genomes is the ability to produce multiple distinct mRNAs (transcripts) from a single gene. While one transcript is often the dominant one for a given tissue or cell type, there are, of course, exceptions in the messy reality of biology. It doesn’t take many… Read more »
Next-gen sequencing (NGS) comprises many sophisticated steps that are often compressed into three major sections: library prep, sequencing, and data analysis. Obviously, the goal is to simplify each of these steps, but more often than not, there is a need for multiple tools to complete each one. Regarding the data analysis, Golden Helix seeks to provide simple yet comprehensive solutions… Read more »
VSPipeline is becoming a very popular tool among VarSeq users as it is essential for creating repeatable clinical workflows that can be executed in automated fashion. Since VSPipeline is a command-line tool, I think it would be helpful to discuss some of the best practices along with helpful tips for getting the most out of VSPipeline. Some of you may be less familiar with VSPipeline, so I want to cover how to set up the first run along with sharing the helpful tips as they arise. … Read more »
One of the inherent realities of next-generation sequencing is the ongoing updates to the human reference genome—one of the strongest recommendations to take the original sequencing data and remap to the latest genome assembly. However, there are several reasons why remapping may be impractical. So, an alternative solution is needed to convert the data running through an initial mapping to… Read more »
A common feature request from Golden Helix customers is to curate and make available genome assemblies for different plant and animal species. These requests commonly come from SVS users as many research projects are being carried out, and having the genome assembly available for analysis is essential. That being said, Golden Helix has an SVS Tutorial available that walks users… Read more »
Summer is quickly approaching, which heralds the return of our summer software specials! Golden Helix will be offering a limited number of the following deals through June 30th, 2021. Here is a snapshot of what is being offered: VarSeq w/ CADD & OMIM (3-users) – $8,995 | (3 available) Our filtering and annotating product, VarSeq, paired with premium annotations. VSClinical,… Read more »
Golden Helix has just released VarSeq v2.2.3. In this update, there are notable changes that can improve CNV calling capabilities covered in this webcast. The topics discussed included: Accounting for GC content Improvements to CNV quality flags Using target filtering Updates to the CNV sensitivity and precision settings This blog post will elaborate on these capabilities and demonstrate how they… Read more »
Thank you to those who attended the recent webcast, “High Precision Exome CNV Detection with VS-CNV”. For those who could not attend but wish to watch, here is a link to the recording. This webcast delved into the complex world of CNV calling for whole-exome samples, which presents unique challenges that require specific considerations and strategies. Over the past several months,… Read more »
I want to take this opportunity to highlight and briefly discuss some of the key features and updates that have been incorporated into VarSeq 2.2.3. Some of you may have attended the webcast that covered the prominent new features added to VarSeq, which are the updates to improve whole-exome analysis workflows, namely improved CNV calling in whole-exome datasets. However, there… Read more »
With the latest release of VarSeq, we have made significant updates to our handling of the interaction of variants and genes. This includes the support for non-coding transcripts, improved splice site predictions, and updates to gene and transcript annotations. We received several questions regarding how decisions are made in the software regarding genes and transcripts with these gene-related changes. This… Read more »
While VarSeq has always had excellent support for variant interpretation and analysis, we continue to find new edge cases in the clinical literature that improve our interpretation capabilities. In this blog, we will be covering some of the new improvements in VarSeq to support the interpretation of non-coding and splice site variants. Transcript Annotation Improvements Let’s start by covering some… Read more »
