VirulenceFinder

This project documents the VirulenceFinder service

Documentation

The VirulenceFinder service contains one python script virulencefinder.py which is the script of the latest version of the VirulenceFinder service. VirulenceFinder identifies viruelnce genes in total or partial sequenced isolates of bacteria - at the moment only E. coli, Enterococcus, S. aureus and Listeria are available.

Content of the repository

1. virulencefinder.py - the program
2. test - test folder
3. README.md
4. Dockerfile - dockerfile for building the virulencefinder docker container

Installation

Setting up VirulenceFinder program
Warning: Due to bugs in BioPython 1.74, if you are not using the Docker container, do not use that version if not using Python 3.7.

# Go to wanted location for virulencefinder
cd /path/to/some/dir
# Clone and enter the virulencefinder directory
git clone https://bitbucket.org/genomicepidemiology/virulencefinder.git
cd virulencefinder

Build Docker container

# Build container
docker build -t virulencefinder .
# Run test
docker run --rm -it \
       --entrypoint=/test/test.sh virulencefinder

Download and install VirulenceFinder database

# Go to the directory where you want to store the virulencefinder database
cd /path/to/some/dir
# Clone database from git repository (develop branch)
git clone https://bitbucket.org/genomicepidemiology/virulencefinder_db.git
cd virulencefinder_db
VIRULENCE_DB=$(pwd)
# Install VirulenceFinder database with executable kma_index program
python3 INSTALL.py kma_index

If kma_index has no bin install please install kma_index from the kma repository: https://bitbucket.org/genomicepidemiology/kma

Dependencies

In order to run the program without using docker, Python 3.5 (or newer) should be installed along with the following versions of the modules (or newer).

Modules

• cgecore 1.5.5
• tabulate 0.7.7

Modules can be installed using the following command. Here, the installation of the module cgecore is used as an example:

pip3 install cgecore

KMA and BLAST

Additionally KMA and BLAST version 2.8.1 or newer should be installed. The newest versions of KMA and BLAST can be installed from here:

https://bitbucket.org/genomicepidemiology/kma

ftp://ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/blast/executables/blast+/LATEST/

Usage

The program can be invoked with the -h option to get help and more information of the service. Run Docker container:

# Run virulencefinder container
docker run --rm -it \
       -v $VIRULENCE_DB:/database \
       -v $(pwd):/workdir \
       virulencefinder -i [INPUTFILE] -o [OUTDIR] [-d] [-p] [-mp] [-l] [-t] [-tmp] [-x]

When running the docker file you must mount 2 directories:

1. virulencefinder_db (VirulenceFinder database) downloaded from bitbucket
2. An output/input folder from where the input file can be reached and an output files can be saved. Here we mount the current working directory (using $pwd) and use this as the output directory, the input file should be reachable from this directory as well. The path to the infile and outfile directories should be relative to the monuted current working directory.

-i INPUTFILE input file (fasta or fastq) relative to pwd, up to 2 files

-o OUTDIR output directory relative to pwd

-d DATABASE set a specific database

-p DATABASE_PATH set path to database, default is /database

-mp METHOD_PATH set path to method (blast or kma)

-l MIN_COV set threshold for minimum coverage

-t THRESHOLD set threshold for mininum blast identity

-tmp temporary directory for storage of the results from the external software

-x extended output: Give extented output with allignment files, template and query hits in fasta and a tab seperated file with gene profile results

-q don't show results

Web-server

A webserver implementing the methods is available at the CGE website and can be found here: https://cge.cbs.dtu.dk/services/VirulenceFinder/

Citation

When using the method please cite:

Real-time whole-genome sequencing for routine typing, surveillance, and outbreak detection of verotoxigenic Escherichia coli. Joensen KG, Scheutz F, Lund O, Hasman H, Kaas RS, Nielsen EM, Aarestrup FM. J. Clin. Micobiol. 2014. 52(5): 1501-1510. [Epub ahead of print]

References

1. Camacho C, Coulouris G, Avagyan V, Ma N, Papadopoulos J, Bealer K, Madden TL. BLAST+: architecture and applications. BMC Bioinformatics 2009; 10:421.
2. Clausen PTLC, Aarestrup FM, Lund O. Rapid and precise alignment of raw reads against redundant databases with KMA. BMC Bioinformatics 2018; 19:307.

License

Copyright (c) 2014, Ole Lund, Technical University of Denmark All rights reserved.

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the “License”); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at

http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an “AS IS” BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.