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TOPMed RNA-seq pipeline harmonization summary

Note: this is a draft of the next pipeline iteration. Software and reference versions may change.

This document is intended to ensure reproducibility of analyses and facilitate harmonization of pipelines, defines primary file locations and accessible download locations, and formalizes the TOPMed RNA-seq pipeline components and parameters. All relevant compute parameters are assumed to be software defaults for the versions listed unless specified otherwise (with the exception of directory/file paths, number of threads, etc.).

All wrapper scripts are available from the GTEx pipeline repository: https://github.com/broadinstitute/gtex-pipeline

Changes to this specification may be proposed based on rigorous benchmarking, pending approval of NHLBI.

Previous versions of the pipeline

Pipeline summary

The GTEx/TOPMed RNA-Seq pipeline generates, for each sample:

  1. Aligned RNA-seq reads in BAM format.
  2. Standard quality control metrics derived from the FASTQs and aligned reads.
  3. Gene-level expression quantifications based on a collapsed version of a reference transcript annotation, provided as read counts and TPM.
  4. Transcript-level expression quantifications, provided as TPM, expected read counts, and isoform percentages.

This document also describes the generation of the reference files required for each pipeline component.

Pipeline components

Reference files

This section describes the GRCh38 reference genome and GENCODE 34 annotation used, including the addition of ERCC spike-in annotations.

The reference files described in this section can be obtained through the following links:

Note: the reference genome is based on the Broad Institute's GRCh38 reference, which is also used for aligning TOPMed whole genome sequence data.

Genome reference

For RNA-seq analyses, a reference FASTA excluding ALT, HLA, and Decoy contigs was generated (as of the writing of this document, none of the RNA-seq pipeline components were designed to properly handle these regions).

Note: The reference produced after filtering out ALT, HLA, and Decoy contigs is identical to the one used by ENCODE (FASTA file). However, the ENCODE reference does not include ERCC spike-in sequences.

  1. The Broad Institute's GRCh38 reference can be obtained from the Broad Institute's FTP server (ftp://[email protected]/bundle/hg38/) or from Google Cloud.

  2. ERCC spike-in reference annotations were downloaded from ThermoFisher (the archive contains two files, ERCC92.fa and ERCC92.gtf) and processed as detailed below. The patched ERCC references are also available here.
    The ERCC FASTA was patched for compatibility with RNA-SeQC/GATK using

    sed 's/ERCC-/ERCC_/g' ERCC92.fa > ERCC92.patched.fa

  3. ALT, HLA, and Decoy contigs were excluded from the reference genome FASTA using the following Python code:

    with open('Homo_sapiens_assembly38.fasta', 'r') as fasta:
    contigs = fasta.read()
contigs = contigs.split('>')
contig_ids = [i.split(' ', 1)[0] for i in contigs]

# exclude ALT, HLA and decoy contigs
filtered_fasta = '>'.join([c for i,c in zip(contig_ids, contigs)
    if not (i[-4:]=='_alt' or i[:3]=='HLA' or i[-6:]=='_decoy')])

with open('Homo_sapiens_assembly38_noALT_noHLA_noDecoy.fasta', 'w') as fasta:
    fasta.write(filtered_fasta)

  4. ERCC spike-in sequences were appended:

    cat Homo_sapiens_assembly38_noALT_noHLA_noDecoy.fasta ERCC92.patched.fa \
    > Homo_sapiens_assembly38_noALT_noHLA_noDecoy_ERCC.fasta

  5. The FASTA index and dictionary (required for Picard/GATK) were generated:

    samtools faidx Homo_sapiens_assembly38_noALT_noHLA_noDecoy_ERCC.fasta
java -jar picard.jar \
    CreateSequenceDictionary \
    R=Homo_sapiens_assembly38_noALT_noHLA_noDecoy_ERCC.fasta \
    O=Homo_sapiens_assembly38_noALT_noHLA_noDecoy_ERCC.dict

Reference annotation

The reference annotations were prepared as follows:

  1. The comprehensive gene annotation was downloaded from GENCODE: gencode.v34.annotation.gtf.gz.

  2. For gene-level quantifications, the annotation was collapsed with the script used in the GTEx pipeline:

    python3 collapse_annotation.py \
    --collapse_only gencode.v34.GRCh38.annotation.gtf \
    gencode.v34.GRCh38.genes.collapsed_only.gtf

  3. Gene- and transcript-level attributes were added to the ERCC GTF with the following Python code:

    with open('ERCC92.gtf') as exon_gtf, open('ERCC92.patched.gtf', 'w') as gene_gtf:
    for line in exon_gtf:
        f = line.strip().split('\t')
        f[0] = f[0].replace('-', '_')  # required for RNA-SeQC/GATK (no '-' in contig name)
        f[5] = '.'

        attr = f[8]
        if attr[-1] == ';':
            attr = attr[:-1]
        attr = dict([i.split(' ') for i in attr.replace('"', '').split('; ')])
        # add gene_name, gene_type
        attr['gene_name'] = attr['gene_id']
        attr['gene_type'] = 'ercc_control'
        attr['gene_status'] = 'KNOWN'
        attr['level'] = 2
        for k in ['id', 'type', 'name', 'status']:
            attr[f'transcript_{k}'] = attr[f'gene_{k}']

        attr_str = []
        for k in ['gene_id', 'transcript_id', 'gene_type', 'gene_status', 'gene_name',
            'transcript_type', 'transcript_status', 'transcript_name']:
            attr_str.append(f'{k} "{attr[k]}";')
        attr_str.append(f"level {attr['level']};")
        f[8] = ' '.join(attr_str)

        # write gene, transcript, exon
        gene_gtf.write('\t'.join(f[:2] + ['gene'] + f[3:]) + '\n')
        gene_gtf.write('\t'.join(f[:2] + ['transcript'] + f[3:]) + '\n')
        f[8] = ' '.join(attr_str[:2])
        gene_gtf.write('\t'.join(f[:2] + ['exon'] + f[3:]) + '\n')

  4. The ERCC annotation was appended to the reference GTFs:

    cat gencode.v34.GRCh38.annotation.gtf ERCC92.patched.gtf \
    > gencode.v34.GRCh38.annotation.ERCC.gtf
cat gencode.v34.GRCh38.genes.gtf ERCC92.patched.gtf \
    > gencode.v34.GRCh38.ERCC.genes.gtf

STAR index

All RNA-seq samples were sequenced as 2x101bp paired-end, and the STAR index was generated accordingly:

STAR --runMode genomeGenerate \
    --genomeDir STARv275a_genome_GRCh38_noALT_noHLA_noDecoy_ERCC_v34_oh100 \
    --genomeFastaFiles Homo_sapiens_assembly38_noALT_noHLA_noDecoy.fasta ERCC92.patched.fa \
    --sjdbGTFfile gencode.v34.GRCh38.annotation.ERCC92.gtf \
    --sjdbOverhang 100 --runThreadN 10

RSEM reference

The RSEM references were generated using:

rsem-prepare-reference --num-threads 10 \
    --gtf gencode.v34.GRCh38.annotation.ERCC92.gtf \
    Homo_sapiens_assembly38_noALT_noHLA_noDecoy.fasta,ERCC92.patched.fa \
    rsem_reference

Installation of pipeline components

This section lists the source repositories and installation instructions for the pipeline components. The instruction replicate those in the pipeline Dockerfile.

  1. FastQC v0.11.9:

    cd /opt && \
wget https://www.bioinformatics.babraham.ac.uk/projects/fastqc/fastqc_v0.11.9.zip && \
unzip fastqc_v0.11.9.zip && mv FastQC FastQC-0.11.9 && cd FastQC-0.11.9 && chmod 775 fastqc
PATH=/opt/FastQC-0.11.9:$PATH

  2. STAR v2.7.5c:

    cd /opt && \
wget --no-check-certificate https://github.com/alexdobin/STAR/archive/2.7.5c.tar.gz && \
tar -xf 2.7.5c.tar.gz && rm 2.7.5c.tar.gz
PATH=/opt/STAR-2.7.5c/bin/Linux_x86_64_static:$PATH

  3. Picard v2.23.3 or later (for MarkDuplicates):

    mkdir /opt/picard-tools && \
wget --no-check-certificate \
    -P /opt/picard-tools/ \
    https://github.com/broadinstitute/picard/releases/download/2.23.3/picard.jar

  4. RSEM v1.3.3:

    cd /opt && \
wget --no-check-certificate \
    https://github.com/deweylab/RSEM/archive/v1.3.3.tar.gz && \
tar -xvf v1.3.3.tar.gz && rm v1.3.3.tar.gz && cd RSEM-1.3.3 && make
PATH=/opt/RSEM-1.3.1:$PATH

  5. RNA-SeQC v2.3.6:

    mkdir /opt/rnaseqc && cd /opt/rnaseqc && \
wget https://github.com/getzlab/rnaseqc/releases/download/v2.3.6/rnaseqc.v2.3.6.linux.gz && \
gunzip rnaseqc.v2.3.6.linux.gz && mv rnaseqc.v2.3.6.linux rnaseqc && chmod 775 rnaseqc
PATH=/opt/rnaseqc:$PATH
pip3 install rnaseqc

Pipeline parameters

This section contains the full list of inputs and parameters provided to each method.

The following variables must be defined:

  • star_index: path to the directory containing the STAR index
  • fastq1 and fastq2: paths to the two FASTQ files
  • sample_id: sample identifier; this will be prepended to output files
  • rsem_reference: path to the directory containing the RSEM reference
  • genome_fasta: path to the reference genome (Homo_sapiens_assembly38_noALT_noHLA_noDecoy_ERCC.fasta as described above)
  • genes_gtf: path to the collapsed, gene-level GTF (gencode.v30.GRCh38.ERCC.genes.gtf as described above)
  • star_bam_file: name/file path of the BAM generated by the STAR aligner, by default ${sample_id}.Aligned.sortedByCoord.out.bam.
  • md_bam_file: name of the BAM generated by Picard MarkDuplicates.
  1. STAR 
    STAR --runMode alignReads \
    --runThreadN 8\
    --genomeDir ${star_index} \
    --twopassMode Basic \
    --outFilterMultimapNmax 20 \
    --alignSJoverhangMin 8 \
    --alignSJDBoverhangMin 1 \
    --outFilterMismatchNmax 999 \
    --outFilterMismatchNoverLmax 0.1 \
    --alignIntronMin 20 \
    --alignIntronMax 1000000 \
    --alignMatesGapMax 1000000 \
    --outFilterType BySJout \
    --outFilterScoreMinOverLread 0.33 \
    --outFilterMatchNminOverLread 0.33 \
    --limitSjdbInsertNsj 1200000 \
    --readFilesIn ${fastq1} ${fastq2} \
    --readFilesCommand zcat \
    --outFileNamePrefix ${sample_id} \
    --outSAMstrandField intronMotif \
    --outFilterIntronMotifs None \
    --alignSoftClipAtReferenceEnds Yes \
    --quantMode TranscriptomeSAM GeneCounts \
    --outSAMtype BAM Unsorted \
    --outSAMunmapped Within \
    --genomeLoad NoSharedMemory \
    --chimSegmentMin 15 \
    --chimJunctionOverhangMin 15 \
    --chimOutType Junctions WithinBAM SoftClip \
    --chimMainSegmentMultNmax 1 \
    --outSAMattributes NH HI AS nM NM ch \
    --outSAMattrRGline ID:rg1 SM:sm1
  2. MarkDuplicates 
    java -jar picard.jar \
    MarkDuplicates I=${star_bam_file} \
    O=${md_bam_file} \
    M=${sample_id}.marked_dup_metrics.txt \
    ASSUME_SORT_ORDER=coordinate
  3. RSEM 
    rsem-calculate-expression \
    --num-threads 2 \
    --fragment-length-max 1000 \
    --no-bam-output \
    --paired-end \
    --estimate-rspd \
    --forward-prob 0.0 \
    --bam ${sample_id}.Aligned.toTranscriptome.out.bam \
    ${rsem_reference} ${sample_id}
  4. RNA-SeQC 
    rnaseqc ${genes_gtf} ${bam_file} . \
    -s ${sample_id} --stranded rf -vv

Appendix: wrapper scripts from the GTEx pipeline

This section provides the commands used to run each step of the pipeline based on the wrapper scripts from the GTEx pipeline.

The following variables must be defined:

  • star_index: path to the directory containing the STAR index
  • fastq1 and fastq2: paths to the two FASTQ files
  • sample_id: sample identifier; this will be prepended to output files
  • rsem_reference: path to the directory containing the RSEM reference
  • genome_fasta: path to the reference genome (Homo_sapiens_assembly38_noALT_noHLA_noDecoy_ERCC.fasta as described above)
  • genes_gtf: path to the collapsed, gene-level GTF (gencode.v34.GRCh38.ERCC.genes.gtf as described above)
  1. STAR (run_STAR.py) 
    python3 run_STAR.py \
    ${star_index} ${fastq1} ${fastq2} ${sample_id} \
    --output_dir star_out \
    --outFilterMultimapNmax 20 \
    --alignSJoverhangMin 8 \
    --alignSJDBoverhangMin 1 \
    --outFilterMismatchNmax 999 \
    --outFilterMismatchNoverLmax 0.1 \
    --alignIntronMin 20 \
    --alignIntronMax 1000000 \
    --alignMatesGapMax 1000000 \
    --outFilterType BySJout \
    --outFilterScoreMinOverLread 0.33 \
    --outFilterMatchNminOverLread 0.33 \
    --limitSjdbInsertNsj 1200000 \
    --outSAMstrandField intronMotif \
    --outFilterIntronMotifs None \
    --alignSoftClipAtReferenceEnds Yes \
    --quantMode TranscriptomeSAM GeneCounts \
    --outSAMattrRGline ID:rg1 SM:sm1 \
    --outSAMattributes NH HI AS nM NM ch \
    --chimSegmentMin 15 \
    --chimJunctionOverhangMin 15 \
    --chimOutType Junctions WithinBAM SoftClip \
    --chimMainSegmentMultNmax 1 \
    --threads 8
  2. MarkDuplicates (run_MarkDuplicates.py) 
    python3 -u run_MarkDuplicates.py ${sample_id}.Aligned.sortedByCoord.out.bam ${sample_id}
  3. RSEM (run_RSEM.py) 
    python3 run_RSEM.py \
    --max_frag_len 1000 \
    --estimate_rspd true \
    --is_stranded true \
    --threads 2 \
    ${rsem_reference} ${sample_id}.Aligned.toTranscriptome.out.bam ${sample_id}
  4. RNA-SeQC (run_rnaseqc.py) 
    python3 run_rnaseqc.py \
    ${genes_gtf}
    ${sample_id}.Aligned.sortedByCoord.out.md.bam \
    ${sample_id} \
    --stranded rf