New discoveries using NGS data analysis are never-ending and are pushing precision medicine to the forefront. In this month’s customer publication blog, I am focusing on our VarSeq software as investigators harness its power to perform a variety of investigational study designs. From cancer to inherited rare disease research, VarSeq is the rising star in research and diagnostic tools. At… Read more »
In continuation of our blog posts focusing on new features of VarSeq v2.2.2, here we will discuss the Latest Sample Assessment algorithm for both single nucleotide variants (SNVs) and copy number variants (CNVS). This algorithm annotates the variants of the project with the latest assessment from your variant catalog, which will show the history of interpretations made for the variants… Read more »
VarSeq 2.2.2 was released on December 17th, 2020 and the main feature that was added to VarSeq was that the VSClinical ACMG Guidelines workflow now has an additional CNV interpretation framework based on the ACMG/ClinGen guidelines. This product supports interpreting CNVs detected with VS-CNV or imported CNVs alongside variants and requires both a VSClinical ACMG license and a CNV license…. Read more »
Webcast Recap In the recent webcast “Exploring New Features and Clinical Reports in the ACMG Guideline Workflow”, Gabe and I took viewers through an evaluation with CNVs and SNVs according to the ACMG Guidelines where we generated and customized a clinical report. Along the way, we highlighted many new features that will soon be available in the upcoming VarSeq release…. Read more »
In our previous webcast, Evaluating CNVs with VSClinical’s New ACMG Guidelines, we focused on a CNV deletion (12:27715515-29628122×1) in which the patient had a known disorder called Brachydactyly type E. The CNV was isolated using our VS-CNV caller and applied to the ACMG CNV guidelines using the intuitive steps of VSClinical. If you missed the webcast, you can watch the… Read more »
Those of you who have been attending our recent webcasts have learned about our upcoming VarSeq release. A part of that release will be an additional algorithm that will annotate variants matching the current sample. If you are not familiar with these webcasts, here are several on-demand webcasts I recommend to get you familiar with these new features: Evaluating Copy… Read more »
In the webcast, Evaluation of Copy Number Variants with VSClinical’s New ACMG Guideline Workflow, we discussed how VSClinical implements Section 4 of the ACMG guidelines. Specifically, we focused on integrating literature and publications to assess the pathogenicity of a CNV event when there was a lack of dosage sensitivity information. One of the primary pieces of evidence for evaluating genes… Read more »
In a recent webcast, users were exposed to some new features upcoming in the next release of VarSeq. In this update, we will use an example de Novo CNV in a cardiomyopathy panel in VarSeq. There is a long list of new tools and polishes to the software but one major upgrade is the inclusion of the ACMG and ClinGen… Read more »
A common discussion with our customers includes the challenges with the tertiary stage of analyzing next-gen sequencing data. This is the stage where all data from gene panels, exome, or whole genome scale pass through filters to quickly isolate the clinically relevant variant contributing to a patient disorder. Golden Helix has recognized these challenges in the scale of data and… Read more »
In this blog update, I’ll be walking you through some of the advanced plotting capabilities with GenomeBrowse. The strategy with any next-gen sequencing analysis is to filter down to interesting variants for either research or clinical conclusion. Golden Helix produces powerful software specifically tailored for this efficient and comprehensive search for interesting and clinically relevant variants. One additional advantage of… Read more »
VSClinical is a feature to evaluate clinically relevant variants according to the ACMG or AMP guidelines. This feature can also be used to identify if a variant has been observed previously or evaluate a manually inserted variant. Take, for example, the scenario where a colleague is interested to see if you have seen any variants associated with Bechet syndrome, which… Read more »
In our recent webcast announcing the upcoming release of VarSeq VSClinical and the implementation of the ACMG guidelines for NGS CNVs, we had a number of live questions we didn’t get a chance to cover at the end of the presentation. I will follow up on those questions in this blog post. But first, if you didn’t get a chance to join us for… Read more »
In the 1990s the genetic industry voiced a request for a variant catalog that incorporates associated variant information such as phenotypic and metabolic pathways. The call was answered by NCBI, which created dbSNP; dbSNP became publicly available in 1998 and around 1.5 million variants. Fast forward to the present and dbSNP now contains over 2 billion SNPs spanning human, rat,… Read more »
We have now reached the final blog of the NGS-Solutions for Clinical Variant Analysis series. Part I of this series explored the capture of variant classifications in the VSClinical environment when following the ACMG and AMP guidelines. Part II was similar in content but for the capture of clinically relevant copy number variants as well as using a CNV catalog… Read more »
The potential of genetic testing to impact a patient’s life has been greatly accelerated by the sharing of variant interpretations done by clinical labs in public repositories such as ClinVar. This is not an inevitable outcome, but the persistent work and advocacy of people like Dr. Heidi Rehm and organizations like ClinGen. We recently participated in a survey and vetting… Read more »
The detection and interpretation of Copy Number Variants (CNVs) is vital for the clinical evaluation of individuals with a wide range of disorders. Golden Helix has remained at the forefront of CNVs in Next-Gen Sequencing (NGS) data since 2016 with the release of VS-CNV, our solution that allows you to both detect and analyze CNVs directly from NGS data. Earlier… Read more »
Golden Helix software provides huge analytic gain in handling large-scale genomic data. For example, a number of VarSeq users run cohort projects of whole genome level data processing hundreds of millions of variants at a time. However, many of our users are running gene panel level data for custom panels related to cancer (both hereditary and somatic), autism, cardiac, and… Read more »
In the search for disease causing mutations it is important to determine if the variant has been previously observed in humans and at what frequency. With the advent of increasing genomic information, there is now a variety of different databases and annotation sources that can be utilized. For some, this could be a tedious task that leads only to implementing… Read more »
It is common knowledge that variants can be germline or somatic depending on whether the variant was inherited or acquired after birth. A well-known example is cancer-causing mutations in the BRCA genes, wherein the mutation may or may not have been inherited. Understanding the origin of the cancer-causing mutation is important when assessing potential treatment options as well as identifying… Read more »
The world has been making a shift to use GRCh38 human genome reference coordinates, but the transition has not been fast. Many of the mainstay human catalog projects are changing to use native GRCh38 catalogs, or are remapping their current data to GRCh38 coordinates. While this seems to be the advancing goal, it is leaving researchers and analysts with the… Read more »
