Agent skill

bio-chipseq-qc

ChIP-seq quality control metrics including FRiP (Fraction of Reads in Peaks), cross-correlation analysis (NSC/RSC), library complexity, and IDR (Irreproducibility Discovery Rate) for replicate concordance. Use to assess experiment quality before downstream analysis. Use when assessing ChIP-seq data quality metrics.

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Install this agent skill to your Project

npx add-skill https://github.com/majiayu000/claude-skill-registry/tree/main/skills/data/chipseq-qc

SKILL.md

ChIP-seq Quality Control

Quality metrics for assessing ChIP-seq experiment success and replicate reproducibility.

FRiP (Fraction of Reads in Peaks)

Measures the proportion of reads falling within called peaks. Higher values indicate stronger enrichment.

Calculate FRiP with bedtools

bash
# Count reads in peaks
reads_in_peaks=$(bedtools intersect -a chip.bam -b peaks.narrowPeak -u | samtools view -c -)
total_reads=$(samtools view -c -F 260 chip.bam)

# Calculate FRiP
frip=$(echo "scale=4; $reads_in_peaks / $total_reads" | bc)
echo "FRiP: $frip"

Calculate FRiP with featureCounts

bash
# Convert peaks to SAF format
awk 'BEGIN{OFS="\t"} {print $4, $1, $2, $3, "."}' peaks.narrowPeak > peaks.saf

# Count reads in peaks
featureCounts -a peaks.saf -F SAF -o peak_counts.txt chip.bam

# FRiP from summary
grep -v "^#" peak_counts.txt.summary

Calculate FRiP with pysam

python
import pysam
import pybedtools

def calculate_frip(bam_file, peak_file):
    bam = pysam.AlignmentFile(bam_file, 'rb')
    total_reads = bam.count(read_callback=lambda r: not r.is_unmapped and not r.is_secondary)

    peaks = pybedtools.BedTool(peak_file)
    reads_in_peaks = 0
    for peak in peaks:
        reads_in_peaks += bam.count(peak.chrom, peak.start, peak.end)

    frip = reads_in_peaks / total_reads
    return frip

frip = calculate_frip('chip.bam', 'peaks.narrowPeak')
print(f'FRiP: {frip:.4f}')

FRiP Thresholds

Target Minimum FRiP Good FRiP
TF (narrow) 0.01 > 0.05
Histone (broad) 0.10 > 0.20
H3K4me3 0.05 > 0.15
H3K27ac 0.05 > 0.10

Cross-Correlation Analysis (NSC/RSC)

Strand cross-correlation analysis measures ChIP enrichment by calculating correlation between read coverage on forward and reverse strands.

Run phantompeakqualtools

bash
# Run SPP cross-correlation analysis
Rscript run_spp.R \
    -c=chip.bam \
    -savp=chip_cc.pdf \
    -out=chip_cc.txt \
    -odir=qc/

# Output columns:
# 1: filename
# 2: numReads
# 3: estFragLen (estimated fragment length)
# 4: corr_estFragLen
# 5: phantomPeak
# 6: corr_phantomPeak
# 7: argmin_corr (minimum strand shift)
# 8: min_corr
# 9: NSC (Normalized Strand Coefficient)
# 10: RSC (Relative Strand Coefficient)
# 11: QualityTag

Interpret NSC and RSC

bash
# Parse results
awk -F'\t' '{
    print "Fragment length:", $3
    print "NSC:", $9
    print "RSC:", $10
    print "Quality:", $11
}' chip_cc.txt

NSC/RSC Thresholds

Metric Marginal Acceptable Ideal
NSC < 1.05 1.05 - 1.1 > 1.1
RSC < 0.8 0.8 - 1.0 > 1.0
QualityTag -2 0 1 or 2

Plot Cross-Correlation in R

r
library(spp)

chip_data <- read.bam.tags('chip.bam')
binding_characteristics <- get.binding.characteristics(chip_data, srange=c(50, 500), bin=5)

# Cross-correlation plot
pdf('cc_plot.pdf')
plot(binding_characteristics$cross.correlation, type='l',
     xlab='Strand shift', ylab='Cross-correlation')
abline(v=binding_characteristics$peak$x, col='red')
dev.off()

# Extract metrics
print(paste('Fragment length:', binding_characteristics$peak$x))

Library Complexity (NRF, PBC1, PBC2)

Measures of library complexity to detect PCR amplification issues.

Calculate with bedtools

bash
# NRF: Non-Redundant Fraction (unique reads / total reads)
total=$(samtools view -c -F 260 chip.bam)
unique=$(samtools view -F 260 chip.bam | cut -f1-4 | sort -u | wc -l)
nrf=$(echo "scale=4; $unique / $total" | bc)
echo "NRF: $nrf"

# PBC1: PCR Bottleneck Coefficient 1 (M1/Mdistinct)
# M1 = locations with exactly 1 read
# Mdistinct = distinct genomic locations

bedtools bamtobed -i chip.bam | \
    awk '{print $1":"$2"-"$3}' | \
    sort | uniq -c | \
    awk '{
        if($1==1) m1++
        mdist++
    } END {
        print "M1:", m1
        print "Mdistinct:", mdist
        print "PBC1:", m1/mdist
    }'

Library Complexity Thresholds

Metric Severe Mild None
NRF < 0.5 0.5 - 0.8 > 0.8
PBC1 < 0.5 0.5 - 0.8 > 0.8
PBC2 < 1 1 - 3 > 3

IDR (Irreproducibility Discovery Rate)

Measures consistency between biological replicates by comparing ranked peak lists.

Run IDR Analysis

bash
# Call peaks on each replicate
macs3 callpeak -t rep1.bam -c input.bam -n rep1 -g hs
macs3 callpeak -t rep2.bam -c input.bam -n rep2 -g hs

# Sort by signal value (column 7)
sort -k7,7nr rep1_peaks.narrowPeak > rep1_sorted.narrowPeak
sort -k7,7nr rep2_peaks.narrowPeak > rep2_sorted.narrowPeak

# Run IDR
idr --samples rep1_sorted.narrowPeak rep2_sorted.narrowPeak \
    --input-file-type narrowPeak \
    --rank signal.value \
    --output-file idr_output.txt \
    --plot idr_plot.pdf \
    --log-output-file idr.log

IDR with Pooled Peaks

bash
# Call peaks on pooled data
samtools merge -f pooled.bam rep1.bam rep2.bam
macs3 callpeak -t pooled.bam -c input.bam -n pooled -g hs

# Run IDR with oracle
idr --samples rep1_sorted.narrowPeak rep2_sorted.narrowPeak \
    --peak-list pooled_peaks.narrowPeak \
    --input-file-type narrowPeak \
    --rank signal.value \
    --output-file idr_oracle.txt

Interpret IDR Results

bash
# Count peaks at different IDR thresholds
awk '$5 >= 540' idr_output.txt | wc -l  # IDR < 0.05 (conservative)
awk '$5 >= 415' idr_output.txt | wc -l  # IDR < 0.1 (optimal)

# IDR output columns:
# 1-3: chr, start, end
# 4: name
# 5: scaled IDR (-125 * log2(IDR))
# 6: strand
# 7: signal (from rep1)
# 8: signal (from rep2)
# 9: local IDR
# 10: global IDR

IDR Self-Consistency Check

bash
# Split one sample and check self-consistency
samtools view -s 0.5 chip.bam -b > pseudo_rep1.bam
samtools view -s 2.5 chip.bam -b > pseudo_rep2.bam

# Call peaks on pseudo-replicates
macs3 callpeak -t pseudo_rep1.bam -c input.bam -n pseudo1 -g hs
macs3 callpeak -t pseudo_rep2.bam -c input.bam -n pseudo2 -g hs

# Run IDR
idr --samples pseudo1_peaks.narrowPeak pseudo2_peaks.narrowPeak \
    --input-file-type narrowPeak \
    --output-file self_idr.txt

IDR Quality Guidelines

Comparison Expected IDR Peaks Notes
True replicates > 70% of pooled Biological concordance
Pseudo-replicates > 80% of sample Technical consistency
Rep vs Pooled ~100% of rep peaks Subset relationship

deepTools QC Metrics

plotFingerprint

bash
# Assess enrichment with fingerprint plot
plotFingerprint \
    -b chip.bam input.bam \
    --labels ChIP Input \
    -o fingerprint.pdf \
    --outRawCounts fingerprint.tab \
    --outQualityMetrics fingerprint_qc.txt

# Good ChIP shows curve shifted right of diagonal
# Input follows diagonal

computeMatrix and plotProfile

bash
# TSS enrichment
computeMatrix reference-point \
    -S chip.bw \
    -R genes.bed \
    --referencePoint TSS \
    -a 3000 -b 3000 \
    -o matrix.gz

plotProfile \
    -m matrix.gz \
    -o tss_enrichment.pdf \
    --perGroup

plotCorrelation

bash
# Sample correlation
multiBamSummary bins \
    -b rep1.bam rep2.bam rep3.bam \
    -o results.npz

plotCorrelation \
    -in results.npz \
    --corMethod spearman \
    --whatToPlot heatmap \
    -o correlation.pdf \
    --outFileCorMatrix correlation.tab

Complete QC Pipeline

bash
#!/bin/bash
sample=$1
input=$2
peaks=$3

echo "=== ChIP-seq QC Report: $sample ===" > qc_report.txt

# FRiP
reads_in_peaks=$(bedtools intersect -a $sample -b $peaks -u | samtools view -c -)
total_reads=$(samtools view -c -F 260 $sample)
frip=$(echo "scale=4; $reads_in_peaks / $total_reads" | bc)
echo "FRiP: $frip" >> qc_report.txt

# Cross-correlation
Rscript run_spp.R -c=$sample -out=cc.txt -odir=.
nsc=$(cut -f9 cc.txt)
rsc=$(cut -f10 cc.txt)
echo "NSC: $nsc" >> qc_report.txt
echo "RSC: $rsc" >> qc_report.txt

# Library complexity
unique=$(samtools view -F 260 $sample | cut -f1-4 | sort -u | wc -l)
nrf=$(echo "scale=4; $unique / $total_reads" | bc)
echo "NRF: $nrf" >> qc_report.txt

# Fingerprint
plotFingerprint -b $sample $input -o fingerprint.pdf --outQualityMetrics fingerprint_qc.txt

cat qc_report.txt

QC Summary Table

Metric Tool Ideal Value
FRiP bedtools/featureCounts > 0.05 (TF), > 0.1 (histone)
NSC phantompeakqualtools > 1.1
RSC phantompeakqualtools > 1.0
NRF samtools/bedtools > 0.8
PBC1 bedtools > 0.8
IDR (replicates) idr > 70% concordance

Related Skills

  • peak-calling - Call peaks before QC analysis
  • alignment-files - BAM statistics and filtering
  • differential-binding - Compare conditions after QC
  • atac-seq/atac-qc - Similar QC for ATAC-seq

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