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Wong Y, Ignatieva A, Koskela J, Gorjanc G, Wohns AW, Kelleher J. A general and efficient representation of ancestral recombination graphs. Genetics 2024:iyae100. [PMID: 39013109 DOI: 10.1093/genetics/iyae100] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/22/2024] [Accepted: 06/05/2024] [Indexed: 07/18/2024] Open
Abstract
As a result of recombination, adjacent nucleotides can have different paths of genetic inheritance and therefore the genealogical trees for a sample of DNA sequences vary along the genome. The structure capturing the details of these intricately interwoven paths of inheritance is referred to as an ancestral recombination graph (ARG). Classical formalisms have focused on mapping coalescence and recombination events to the nodes in an ARG. However, this approach is out of step with some modern developments, which do not represent genetic inheritance in terms of these events or explicitly infer them. We present a simple formalism that defines an ARG in terms of specific genomes and their intervals of genetic inheritance, and show how it generalizes these classical treatments and encompasses the outputs of recent methods. We discuss nuances arising from this more general structure, and argue that it forms an appropriate basis for a software standard in this rapidly growing field.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yan Wong
- Big Data Institute, Li Ka Shing Centre for Health Information and Discovery, University of Oxford, Oxford OX3 7LF, UK
| | - Anastasia Ignatieva
- School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8TA, UK
- Department of Statistics, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3LB, UK
| | - Jere Koskela
- School of Mathematics, Statistics and Physics, Newcastle University, Newcastle NE1 7RU, UK
- Department of Statistics, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, UK
| | - Gregor Gorjanc
- The Roslin Institute and Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH25 9RG, UK
| | - Anthony W Wohns
- Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
- Department of Genetics, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA 94305-5101, USA
| | - Jerome Kelleher
- Big Data Institute, Li Ka Shing Centre for Health Information and Discovery, University of Oxford, Oxford OX3 7LF, UK
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Tagami D, Bisschop G, Kelleher J. tstrait: a quantitative trait simulator for ancestral recombination graphs. BIOINFORMATICS (OXFORD, ENGLAND) 2024; 40:btae334. [PMID: 38796683 DOI: 10.1093/bioinformatics/btae334] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/13/2024] [Revised: 05/14/2024] [Accepted: 05/24/2024] [Indexed: 05/28/2024]
Abstract
SUMMARY Ancestral recombination graphs (ARGs) encode the ensemble of correlated genealogical trees arising from recombination in a compact and efficient structure and are of fundamental importance in population and statistical genetics. Recent breakthroughs have made it possible to simulate and infer ARGs at biobank scale, and there is now intense interest in using ARG-based methods across a broad range of applications, particularly in genome-wide association studies (GWAS). Sophisticated methods exist to simulate ARGs using population genetics models, but there is currently no software to simulate quantitative traits directly from these ARGs. To apply existing quantitative trait simulators users must export genotype data, losing important information about ancestral processes and producing prohibitively large files when applied to the biobank-scale datasets currently of interest in GWAS. We present tstrait, an open-source Python library to simulate quantitative traits on ARGs, and show how this user-friendly software can quickly simulate phenotypes for biobank-scale datasets on a laptop computer. AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION tstrait is available for download on the Python Package Index. Full documentation with examples and workflow templates is available on https://tskit.dev/tstrait/docs/, and the development version is maintained on GitHub (https://github.com/tskit-dev/tstrait).
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Affiliation(s)
- Daiki Tagami
- Department of Statistics, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3LB, United Kingdom
- Big Data Institute, Li Ka Shing Centre for Health Information and Discovery, University of Oxford, Oxford OX3 7LF, United Kingdom
| | - Gertjan Bisschop
- Big Data Institute, Li Ka Shing Centre for Health Information and Discovery, University of Oxford, Oxford OX3 7LF, United Kingdom
| | - Jerome Kelleher
- Big Data Institute, Li Ka Shing Centre for Health Information and Discovery, University of Oxford, Oxford OX3 7LF, United Kingdom
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Peng D, Mulder OJ, Edge MD. Evaluating ARG-estimation methods in the context of estimating population-mean polygenic score histories. BIORXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR BIOLOGY 2024:2024.05.24.595829. [PMID: 38854009 PMCID: PMC11160635 DOI: 10.1101/2024.05.24.595829] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/11/2024]
Abstract
Scalable methods for estimating marginal coalescent trees across the genome present new opportunities for studying evolution and have generated considerable excitement, with new methods extending scalability to thousands of samples. Benchmarking of the available methods has revealed general tradeoffs between accuracy and scalability, but performance in downstream applications has not always been easily predictable from general performance measures, suggesting that specific features of the ARG may be important for specific downstream applications of estimated ARGs. To exemplify this point, we benchmark ARG estimation methods with respect to a specific set of methods for estimating the historical time course of a population-mean polygenic score (PGS) using the marginal coalescent trees encoded by the ancestral recombination graph (ARG). Here we examine the performance in simulation of six ARG estimation methods: ARGweaver, RENT+, Relate, tsinfer+tsdate, ARG-Needle/ASMC-clust , and SINGER , using their estimated coalescent trees and examining bias, mean squared error (MSE), confidence interval coverage, and Type I and II error rates of the downstream methods. Although it does not scale to the sample sizes attainable by other new methods, SINGER produced the most accurate estimated PGS histories in many instances, even when Relate, tsinfer+tsdate , and ARG-Needle/ASMC-clust used samples ten times as large as those used by SINGER. In general, the best choice of method depends on the number of samples available and the historical time period of interest. In particular, the unprecedented sample sizes allowed by Relate, tsinfer+tsdate , and ARG-Needle/ASMC-clust are of greatest importance when the recent past is of interest-further back in time, most of the tree has coalesced, and differences in contemporary sample size are less salient.
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Tagami D, Bisschop G, Kelleher J. tstrait: a quantitative trait simulator for ancestral recombination graphs. BIORXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR BIOLOGY 2024:2024.03.13.584790. [PMID: 38559118 PMCID: PMC10980058 DOI: 10.1101/2024.03.13.584790] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 04/04/2024]
Abstract
Summary Ancestral recombination graphs (ARGs) encode the ensemble of correlated genealogical trees arising from recombination in a compact and efficient structure, and are of fundamental importance in population and statistical genetics. Recent breakthroughs have made it possible to simulate and infer ARGs at biobank scale, and there is now intense interest in using ARG-based methods across a broad range of applications, particularly in genome-wide association studies (GWAS). Sophisticated methods exist to simulate ARGs using population genetics models, but there is currently no software to simulate quantitative traits directly from these ARGs. To apply existing quantitative trait simulators users must export genotype data, losing important information about ancestral processes and producing prohibitively large files when applied to the biobank-scale datasets currently of interest in GWAS. We present tstrait, an open-source Python library to simulate quantitative traits on ARGs, and show how this user-friendly software can quickly simulate phenotypes for biobank-scale datasets on a laptop computer. Availability and Implementation tstrait is available for download on the Python Package Index. Full documentation with examples and workflow templates is available on https://tskit.dev/tstrait/docs/, and the development version is maintained on GitHub (https://github.com/tskit-dev/tstrait). Contact daiki.tagami@hertford.ox.ac.uk.
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Affiliation(s)
- Daiki Tagami
- Department of Statistics, University of Oxford, 24-29 St Giles’, Oxford OX1 3LB, United Kingdom
- Big Data Institute, Li Ka Shing Centre for Health Information and Discovery, University of Oxford, Old Road Campus, Oxford OX3 7LF, United Kingdom
| | - Gertjan Bisschop
- Big Data Institute, Li Ka Shing Centre for Health Information and Discovery, University of Oxford, Old Road Campus, Oxford OX3 7LF, United Kingdom
| | - Jerome Kelleher
- Big Data Institute, Li Ka Shing Centre for Health Information and Discovery, University of Oxford, Old Road Campus, Oxford OX3 7LF, United Kingdom
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Lewanski AL, Grundler MC, Bradburd GS. The era of the ARG: An introduction to ancestral recombination graphs and their significance in empirical evolutionary genomics. PLoS Genet 2024; 20:e1011110. [PMID: 38236805 PMCID: PMC10796009 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1011110] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/22/2024] Open
Abstract
In the presence of recombination, the evolutionary relationships between a set of sampled genomes cannot be described by a single genealogical tree. Instead, the genomes are related by a complex, interwoven collection of genealogies formalized in a structure called an ancestral recombination graph (ARG). An ARG extensively encodes the ancestry of the genome(s) and thus is replete with valuable information for addressing diverse questions in evolutionary biology. Despite its potential utility, technological and methodological limitations, along with a lack of approachable literature, have severely restricted awareness and application of ARGs in evolution research. Excitingly, recent progress in ARG reconstruction and simulation have made ARG-based approaches feasible for many questions and systems. In this review, we provide an accessible introduction and exploration of ARGs, survey recent methodological breakthroughs, and describe the potential for ARGs to further existing goals and open avenues of inquiry that were previously inaccessible in evolutionary genomics. Through this discussion, we aim to more widely disseminate the promise of ARGs in evolutionary genomics and encourage the broader development and adoption of ARG-based inference.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alexander L. Lewanski
- Department of Integrative Biology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, United States of America
- W.K. Kellogg Biological Station, Michigan State University, Hickory Corners, Michigan, United States of America
- Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior Program, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, United States of America
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States of America
| | - Michael C. Grundler
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States of America
| | - Gideon S. Bradburd
- W.K. Kellogg Biological Station, Michigan State University, Hickory Corners, Michigan, United States of America
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States of America
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Lewanski AL, Grundler MC, Bradburd GS. The era of the ARG: an empiricist's guide to ancestral recombination graphs. ARXIV 2023:arXiv:2310.12070v1. [PMID: 37904740 PMCID: PMC10614969] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/01/2023]
Abstract
In the presence of recombination, the evolutionary relationships between a set of sampled genomes cannot be described by a single genealogical tree. Instead, the genomes are related by a complex, interwoven collection of genealogies formalized in a structure called an ancestral recombination graph (ARG). An ARG extensively encodes the ancestry of the genome(s) and thus is replete with valuable information for addressing diverse questions in evolutionary biology. Despite its potential utility, technological and methodological limitations, along with a lack of approachable literature, have severely restricted awareness and application of ARGs in empirical evolution research. Excitingly, recent progress in ARG reconstruction and simulation have made ARG-based approaches feasible for many questions and systems. In this review, we provide an accessible introduction and exploration of ARGs, survey recent methodological breakthroughs, and describe the potential for ARGs to further existing goals and open avenues of inquiry that were previously inaccessible in evolutionary genomics. Through this discussion, we aim to more widely disseminate the promise of ARGs in evolutionary genomics and encourage the broader development and adoption of ARG-based inference.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alexander L Lewanski
- Department of Integrative Biology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, US
- W.K. Kellogg Biological Station, Michigan State University, Hickory Corners, MI, US
- Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior Program, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, US
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, US
| | - Michael C Grundler
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, US
| | - Gideon S Bradburd
- W.K. Kellogg Biological Station, Michigan State University, Hickory Corners, MI, US
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, US
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