Quick Start
This is a very brief introduction on how to run Pindel.
We will use the fasta file hs_ref_chr20.fa as the reference genome. The reads that we want to compare against the reference are in a Pindel format file called COLO-829_20-p_ok. We want Pindel to write the output files to a separate directory called output (so before calling Pindel, we can create the directory: mkdir output).
To run Pindel, we can use the following command on the data in the demo folder:
mkdir output ./pindel -f demo/hs_ref_chr20.fa -p demo/COLO-829_20-p_ok.txt -c 20 -o output/ref ./pindel -f demo/simulated_reference.fa -i demo/simulated_config.txt -c ALL -o output/simulated
The output directory will now look like: <pre class="terminal scrollable"> -rw-r–r– 1 root root 17961311 2011-05-23 09:54 ref_D -rw-r–r– 1 root root 40203 2011-05-23 09:54 ref_TD -rw-r–r– 1 root root 38546 2011-05-23 09:54 ref_INV -rw-r–r– 1 root root 16364718 2011-05-23 09:54 ref_SI -rw-r–r– 1 root root 22946 2011-05-23 09:54 ref_LI -rw-r–r– 1 root root 285266 2011-05-23 09:54 ref_BP </pre>
In general, pindel is used as follows:
./pindel -f <reference.fa> -p <pindel_input> [and/or -i bam_configuration_file] -c <chromosome_name> -o <prefix_for_output_files>
If you wish to use Pindel directly on a BAM-file, instead of first converting the BAM-file into a Pindel input file with bam2pindel, you need to take the following steps:
1) create a bam-configuration file, consisting of one line per BAM-file that you want Pindel to process. Every line should contain the name of a bam-file, the expected average insert size, and a label to indicate the identity of the sample. For example:
tumor_sample_1222.bam 250 TUMOR_1222 somatic_sample_1222.bam 250 HEALTHY_1222
2) run pindel with the -i option, so
./pindel -f hs_ref_GRCh37.fa -i 1222config.txt -c ALL -o sample_1222
The output files should then contain all detected indels and SVs relative to the reference, and the labels will indicate in which samples each indel and SV occurred.
Pindel has many parameters that you can set to increase speed (multithreading) or change the balance between sensitivity and specificity. The parameters are:
Required parameters
-f/--fasta the reference genome sequences in fasta format
-p/--pindel-file the Pindel input file; (either this or a bam configuration file is required).
-i/--config-file the bam config file; either this or a pindel input file is required. Per line: path and file name of bam, insert
size and sample tag. For example: /data/tumour.bam 400 tumour
-o/--output-prefix Output prefix
-c/--chromosome Which chr/fragment. Pindel will process reads for one chromosome each time. ChrName must be the same as in reference
sequence and in read file. '-c ALL' will make Pindel loop
over all chromosomes. The search for indels and SVs can also be limited to a specific region;
-c 20:10,000,000 will only look for indels and SVs after position 10,000,000 == [10M, end],
-c 20:5,000,000-15,000,000 will report indels in the range between and including the bases at
position 5,000,000 and 15,000,000 = [5M, 15M]
Parameters affecting runtime and memory usage
-T/--number_of_threads the number of threads Pindel will use (default 1). More threads assures lower runtime, but requires
multiple processors
-w/--window_size for saving RAM, divides the reference in bins of X million bases and only analyzes the reads per bin
(default 10 (=10 million)). A smaller bin size will reduce memory but will increase runtime slightly.
Parameters affecting which structural variants are reported
-x/--max_range_index the maximum size of structural variations to be detected; the higher this number, the greater the
number of SVs reported, but the computational cost and memory requirements increase, as does the
rate of false positives. 1=128, 2=512, 3=2,048, 4=8,092, 5=32,368, 6=129,472, 7=517,888, 8=2,071,552,
9=8,286,208 (maximum 9, default 5)
-r/--report_inversions report inversions (default true)
-t/--report_duplications report tandem duplications (default true)
-l/--report_long_insertions report insertions of which the full sequence cannot be deduced because of their length (default true)
-k/--report_breakpoints report breakpoints (default true)
-s/--report_close_mapped_reads report reads of which only one end (the one closest to the mapped read of the paired-end read) could
be mapped (default false)
-n/--min_NT_size only report inserted (NT) sequences in deletions greater than this size (default 50)
-v/--min_inversion_size only report inversions greater than this number of bases (default 50)
Parameters affecting sensitivity and selectivity
-d/--min_num_matched_bases only consider reads as evidence if they map with more than this number of bases to the reference (default 30)
-a/--additional_mismatch Pindel will only map part of a read to the reference genome if there are no other candidate positions
with no more than the specified number of mismatches position. The bigger this value, the more accurate
but less sensitive. (default value 1)
-m/--min_perfect_match_around_BP at the point where the read is split into two, there should at least be this number of perfectly matching bases
between read and reference (default value 3)
-e/--sequencing_error_rate the expected fraction of sequencing errors (default 0.05)
-u/--maximum_allowed_mismatch_rate only reads with fewer mismatches with the reference genome than this fraction will be considered (default 0.1)
Miscellaneous parameters
-b/--breakdancer [file name]. Pindel is able to use calls from other SV methods such as BreakDancer to further increase sensitivity and specificity.
BreakDancer result or calls from any methods must in the format: ChrA LocA stringA ChrB LocB stringB other
-Q [file name] The list of BreakDancer calls with Pindel support information.
Format: chr Loc_left Loc_right size type index
For example, "1 72766323 72811840 45516 D 11970" means the deletion event chr1:72766323-72811840 of size 45516 is
reported as an event with index 11970 in Pindel report of deletion.
-h/--help show the command line options of Pindel