[Bioperl-l] extending the PHYLIP format

Wed May 28 18:01:55 UTC 2008

Let me summarize a few things I implemented during the 07 Nescent 
Hackathon (with a lot of help from Sandu, Aaron, and Jason):

1. A "longname.aln" is included in the bioperl-live. Which turns out to 
be the same file as "pep-266.aln" (one of them showed be removed). This 
file is in clustalw format. Also, it doesn't contain the tough cases 
like 50 chars long, with spaces and single quotes.

2. The solution to this ugly restriction that had been implemented 
include the following pair of SimpleAlignI methods:
 set_displayname_safe

      Title     : set_displayname_safe
      Usage     : ($new_aln, $ref_name)=$ali->set_displayname_safe(4)
      Function  : Assign machine-generated serial names to sequences in 
input order.
                  Designed to protect names during PHYLIP runs. Assign 
10-char string
                  in the form of "S000000001" to "S999999999". Restore 
the original
                  names using "restore_displayname".
      Returns   : 1. a new $aln with system names;
                  2. a hash ref for restoring names
      Argument  : Number for id length (default 10)

 restore_displayname

      Title     : restore_displayname
      Usage     : $aln_name_restored=$ali->restore_displayname($hash_ref)
      Function  : Restore original sequence names (after running
                  $ali->set_displayname_safe)
      Returns   : a new $aln with names restored.
      Argument  : a hash reference of names from "set_displayname_safe".

3. Added following tests in "SimpleAlign.t":
# test set_displayname_safe & restore_displayname:
$str = Bio::AlignIO->new(-file=> 
Bio::Root::IO->catfile("t","data","pep-266.aln"));
$aln=$str->next_aln();
is $aln->get_seq_by_pos(3)->display_id, 'Smik_Contig1103.1', 'initial 
display id ok';
my ($new_aln, $ref)=$aln->set_displayname_safe();
is $new_aln->get_seq_by_pos(3)->display_id, 'S000000003', 'safe display 
id ok';
my $restored_aln=$new_aln->restore_displayname($ref);
is $restored_aln->get_seq_by_pos(3)->display_id, 'Smik_Contig1103.1', 
'restored display id ok';

I would be happy to contribute more if additional work or design is needed.

ps. We developed a module for graphic annotation of alignments using GD 
(modeled after Bio::Graphics). This should be useful for people who are 
annotating alignments manually (such as highlight alignment positions, 
labeling domains, etc). Someone help me to deposit it in bioperl-live 
through subversion would be great (my cvs developer's account was told 
to be not useful any more).

Jason Stajich wrote:
> Should also ask Weigang what the status is, I think he implemented a 
> lot of it.
>
> -jason
> On May 28, 2008, at 6:51 AM, Chris Fields wrote:
>
>> Could you post a few example phylip sequences with long names to svn 
>> and add a ticket to bugzilla?  I would consider this a somewhat 
>> high-priority enhancement.
>>
>> I think keeping this in a single phylip module would be best, but 
>> we'll to see how feasible it is.  I think it is possible to do so, 
>> however, and still retain some backwards compatibility (I may even 
>> have an idea how, just need to test it out).
>>
>> chris
>>
>> On May 28, 2008, at 3:23 AM, Heikki Lehvaslaiho wrote:
>>
>>> I just learned that a number of phylogenetics packages (PAUP, PHYML, 
>>> Mr Bayes
>>> at least ) now allow longer than 10 character IDs in PHYLIP format. The
>>> documentation is scarce but the rules seem to be:
>>>
>>> 1. There can be spaces before the ID.
>>> 2. The ID can be up to 50 characters long.
>>> 3. ID can contain any characters. If you are using spaces within the 
>>> ID, you
>>> have to put the whole ID in single quotes ('). Single quotes can be 
>>> used for
>>> all IDs and are removed when parsing in.
>>> 4. It is customary to have two spaces between the ID and the sequence.
>>>
>>> This custom seems to have come into PHYLIP format from Nexus.
>>> Note that this allows sequences in a file to start at different 
>>> columns.
>>>
>>> Can anyone shed more light into matter?
>>>
>>>
>>> I need to get this into bioperl as the names in HIV sequences that I 
>>> work with
>>> are very long and can not be sensibly truncated.
>>>
>>> What would be the best way to do this?
>>> 1. Add more options to the already heavily
>>>   hacked Bio::AlignIO::phylip.pm
>>> 2. Create a Bio::AlignIO::phyliplong.pm
>>>
>>> Do those ugly hacks for supporting fixed length long IDs really 
>>> really belong
>>> in the vanilla phylip.pm file?
>>>
>>> Opinions?
>>>
>>>     -Heikki
>>>
>>> --______ _/      
>>> _/_____________________________________________________
>>>      _/      _/
>>>     _/  _/  _/  Heikki Lehvaslaiho    heikki at_sanbi _ac _za
>>>    _/_/_/_/_/  Senior Scientist    skype: heikki_lehvaslaiho
>>>   _/  _/  _/  SANBI, South African National Bioinformatics Institute
>>>  _/  _/  _/  University of Western Cape, South Africa
>>>     _/      Phone: +27 21 959 2096   FAX: +27 21 959 2512
>>> ___ _/_/_/_/_/________________________________________________________
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Bioperl-l mailing list
>>> Bioperl-l at lists.open-bio.org
>>> http://lists.open-bio.org/mailman/listinfo/bioperl-l
>>
>> Christopher Fields
>> Postdoctoral Researcher
>> Lab of Dr. Marie-Claude Hofmann
>> College of Veterinary Medicine
>> University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>> Bioperl-l at lists.open-bio.org
>> http://lists.open-bio.org/mailman/listinfo/bioperl-l
>

-- 
Weigang Qiu, Assist. Professor
Department of Biological Sciences
Hunter College, City University of New York
695 Park Ave, New York, NY 10021
1-212-772-5296 (Office, Room 839, Hunter North)