Agent skill
bio-variant-calling-structural-variant-calling
Call structural variants (SVs) from short-read sequencing using Manta, Delly, and LUMPY. Detects deletions, insertions, inversions, duplications, and translocations that are too large for standard SNV callers.
Install this agent skill to your Project
npx add-skill https://github.com/majiayu000/claude-skill-registry/tree/main/skills/other/structural-variant-calling-gptomics-bioskills
SKILL.md
Structural Variant Calling (Short Reads)
Manta (Recommended)
# Configure Manta run (creates runWorkflow.py)
configManta.py \
--bam sample.bam \
--referenceFasta reference.fa \
--runDir manta_run
# Execute
manta_run/runWorkflow.py -j 8
# Output: manta_run/results/variants/
# - diploidSV.vcf.gz (germline SVs)
# - candidateSV.vcf.gz (all candidates)
# - candidateSmallIndels.vcf.gz (small indels)
Manta Tumor-Normal Mode
# Somatic SV calling
configManta.py \
--tumorBam tumor.bam \
--normalBam normal.bam \
--referenceFasta reference.fa \
--runDir manta_somatic
manta_somatic/runWorkflow.py -j 8
# Output includes:
# - somaticSV.vcf.gz (somatic SVs)
# - diploidSV.vcf.gz (germline SVs)
Manta Options
# WES mode (for exome data)
configManta.py \
--bam sample.bam \
--referenceFasta reference.fa \
--exome \ # Use exome settings
--callRegions regions.bed.gz \ # Restrict to regions
--runDir manta_exome
# RNA-seq mode
configManta.py \
--bam rnaseq.bam \
--referenceFasta reference.fa \
--rna \ # RNA-seq mode
--runDir manta_rna
Delly
# Call SVs
delly call \
-g reference.fa \
-o sv_calls.bcf \
sample.bam
# Convert to VCF
bcftools view sv_calls.bcf > sv_calls.vcf
# Multiple samples (joint calling)
delly call \
-g reference.fa \
-o joint_svs.bcf \
sample1.bam sample2.bam sample3.bam
Delly Somatic Mode
# Call with tumor-normal
delly call \
-g reference.fa \
-o svs.bcf \
tumor.bam normal.bam
# Create sample file
echo -e "tumor\ttumor\nnormal\tcontrol" > samples.tsv
# Filter for somatic
delly filter \
-f somatic \
-o somatic_svs.bcf \
-s samples.tsv \
svs.bcf
Delly SV Types
# Call specific SV type
delly call -t DEL -g ref.fa -o deletions.bcf sample.bam
delly call -t DUP -g ref.fa -o duplications.bcf sample.bam
delly call -t INV -g ref.fa -o inversions.bcf sample.bam
delly call -t BND -g ref.fa -o translocations.bcf sample.bam
delly call -t INS -g ref.fa -o insertions.bcf sample.bam
LUMPY
# Extract split reads and discordant pairs
samtools view -b -F 1294 sample.bam > discordant.bam
samtools view -h sample.bam | \
/path/to/lumpy-sv/scripts/extractSplitReads_BwaMem -i stdin | \
samtools view -Sb - > splitters.bam
# Run LUMPY
lumpyexpress \
-B sample.bam \
-S splitters.bam \
-D discordant.bam \
-o lumpy_svs.vcf
Smoove (LUMPY Wrapper)
# Simplified LUMPY workflow
smoove call \
--name sample \
--fasta reference.fa \
--outdir smoove_output \
-p 8 \
sample.bam
# Output: smoove_output/sample-smoove.genotyped.vcf.gz
Merge Multiple Callers
# Use SURVIVOR to merge callsets
# Create file listing VCFs
ls manta_svs.vcf delly_svs.vcf lumpy_svs.vcf > vcf_list.txt
# Merge with parameters
SURVIVOR merge vcf_list.txt 1000 2 1 1 0 50 merged_svs.vcf
# Parameters: max_dist min_callers type_agree strand_agree estimate_dist min_size
Filter SV Calls
# Filter by quality
bcftools view -i 'QUAL >= 20' svs.vcf > svs.filtered.vcf
# Filter by size
bcftools view -i 'ABS(SVLEN) >= 50' svs.vcf > svs.min50.vcf
# Filter by SV type
bcftools view -i 'SVTYPE="DEL"' svs.vcf > deletions.vcf
bcftools view -i 'SVTYPE="INS"' svs.vcf > insertions.vcf
bcftools view -i 'SVTYPE="INV"' svs.vcf > inversions.vcf
bcftools view -i 'SVTYPE="DUP"' svs.vcf > duplications.vcf
bcftools view -i 'SVTYPE="BND"' svs.vcf > translocations.vcf
# Keep only PASS
bcftools view -f PASS svs.vcf > svs.pass.vcf
Annotate SVs
# AnnotSV annotation
AnnotSV \
-SVinputFile svs.vcf \
-genomeBuild GRCh38 \
-outputFile annotated_svs
# Output includes: genes, DGV, gnomAD-SV, ClinVar
SV Types
| Type | Code | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Deletion | DEL | Sequence removed |
| Insertion | INS | Sequence inserted |
| Inversion | INV | Sequence reversed |
| Duplication | DUP | Sequence duplicated |
| Translocation | BND | Breakend (inter-chromosomal) |
Comparison: Manta vs Delly vs LUMPY
| Feature | Manta | Delly | LUMPY |
|---|---|---|---|
| Speed | Fast | Medium | Medium |
| Sensitivity | High | High | High |
| Small SVs | Good | Moderate | Good |
| Large SVs | Good | Good | Good |
| RNA-seq | Yes | No | No |
| Somatic | Yes | Yes | Limited |
Coverage Guidelines
| Coverage | Detection Ability |
|---|---|
| 10x | Large SVs (>1kb) |
| 30x | Most SVs |
| 50x+ | Small SVs, better breakpoints |
Related Skills
- long-read-sequencing/structural-variants - Long-read SV calling
- copy-number/cnvkit-analysis - Copy number variants
- variant-calling/vcf-filtering - Filter VCF files
- alignment-files/alignment-filtering - Prepare BAM files
Recommended Agent Skills
Expand your agent's capabilities with these related and highly-rated skills.
agent-ops-spec
Manage specification documents in .agent/specs/. Use when user provides requirements, acceptance criteria, or feature descriptions that need to be tracked and validated against implementation.
agent-ops-state
Maintain .agent state files. Use at session start, after meaningful steps, and before concluding: read/update constitution/memory/focus/issues/baseline consistently.
agent-ops-spec
Manage specification documents in .agent/specs/. Use when user provides requirements, acceptance criteria, or feature descriptions that need to be tracked and validated against implementation.
agent-ops-testing
Test strategy, execution, and coverage analysis. Use when designing tests, running test suites, or analyzing test results beyond baseline checks.
agent-ops-testing
Test strategy, execution, and coverage analysis. Use when designing tests, running test suites, or analyzing test results beyond baseline checks.
agent-ops-state
Maintain .agent state files. Use at session start, after meaningful steps, and before concluding: read/update constitution/memory/focus/issues/baseline consistently.
Didn't find tool you were looking for?