MoChA WDL pipelines

This page contains instructions for how to run the MoChA WDL pipelines to detect mosaic chromsosomal alterations, impute genotype data, and run association analyses. Using a highly performant and parallelizable design, these workflows can be scaled to satisfy the needs for large biobanks. For any feedback or questions, contact the author. For a brief introduction to the MoChA and imptuation pipelines, check the 15 minutes ISPG video here. To run WDL pipelines you will need Cromwell and to learn how to effectively set up Cromwell or how to run the workflows using Terra follow the tutorial here. To learn how to run the pipeline on UK biobank DNA microarray data see here. If you use these pipelines in your publication, please cite the following papers from 2024

Liu, A. et al. Genetic drivers and cellular selection of female mosaic X chromosome
loss. Nature (2024). [PMID: 38867047] [DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07533-7]

and this website. For any feedback or questions, contact the author

• MoChA pipeline
  • Input Modes
  • Input Files
  • Primary Options
  • Secondary Options
  • Outputs
  • Illumina Example
  • Affymetrix Example
  • Filtering Output Calls
  • Scattered Tasks
• Principal Components Pipeline
• Imputation Pipeline
• Allelic Shift Pipeline
• Association Pipeline
• Polygenic Score Pipeline
• Implementation Notes
• Dockerfiles
• Acknowledgements

MoChA pipeline

The MoChA pipeline first runs Illumina's GenCall or Affymetrix's Axiom genotyping algorithms, then BCFtools/gtc2vcf or BCFtools/affy2vcf to format Illumina or Affymetrix genotype data in more compliant VCF containers, then runs SHAPEIT5 to phase genotypes across overlapping genome windows, and finally it runs MoChA to detect mosaic chromosomal alterations. It can also be used to analyze whole genome sequencing data. The workflow also allows for automatic realigning of manifest files to a genome reference of choice making it effortless to use GRCh38 even when GRCh38 manifest files are not available from the array manufacturer

Input modes

Due to different scenarios for how DNA microarray data is made available, the MoChA WDL pipeline can accept seven possible different data types (visualized in the previous figure as labels in red clouds):

mode	description
idat	intensity files (two per sample)
gtc	genotype/intensities files (one per sample)
cel	intensity files (one per sample)
chp	genotype/intensities files (one per sample)
txt	genotype/intensities tables (two per batch)
vcf	unphased variant call format files (one per batch)
pvcf	phased variant call format files (one per batch)

If the mode variable is not set to be one of these seven values, the behavior will be undefined. Although we advise against it, if you have an Illumina GenomeStudio file and no other options to access the raw data, you can convert the file to a compliant VCF using gtc2vcf and then use the WDL pipeline through the vcf mode. However, in this scenario there is no way to select a genome reference different from the one chosen when the GenomeStudio file was created

You can run the pipeline all the way to the initial conversion to unphased VCF without phasing by setting the target variable to vcf or all the way to phased VCF without running MoChA by setting the target variable to pvcf. You can then input these VCFs back into the pipeline using, respectively, modes vcf or pvcf, although you will need to provide information about computed_gender and call_rate that are generated during the conversion to VCF. If you want to run the pipeline on data from whole genome sequencing, then you can use the vcf mode while making sure to selecte the wgs boolean variable appropriately. VCFs from whole genome sequencing data require specific handling when being merged and phased and we do not advise to use the pipeline on single sample whole genomes sequencing VCFs, as they don't record any information at sites where the sample is homozygous reference

The pipeline will perform a minimal amount of quality control. It is up to the user to correctly handle failed samples and duplicates. In particular, if a large amount of duplicate samples is present, it is important to include as input a list of samples to remove during the QC, or this step could run with incorrect assumptions. Furthermore, when including the conversion to VCF step, the pipeline will output three files, sample_id_file, computed_gender_file, and call_rate_file. We highly recommend to check for call rate failure rate and for discrepancies between reported gender and computed gender that might be indicative of sample swaps

Currently no arrays other than the Affymetrix Genome-Wide Human SNP Array 6.0 are supported in cel mode. Newer Axiom arrays used in biobanks have less uniform ways to run the genotype clustering algorithms that are difficult to package into a pipeline. In these scenarios we recommend to perform the conversion from CEL files to table output separately and then use the pipeline in txt mode

Input Files

The following diagram depicts all possible files that you might need to input into the workflow:

Not all files will be needed and which ones are needed will be defined by the analysis mode selected

For Illumina data you will need to provide a CSV manifest file, a BPM manifest file, and an EGT cluster file. Illumina provides these files for their arrays here or through their customer support. You will need to make sure you are using the correct manifest and cluster files or else the behavior will be undefined. All Illumina arrays should be supported. Notice that some custom Illumina arrays, such as the Global Screening Array + Multi Disease (GSAMD), are extensions of more mainstream Illumina arrays, such as the Global Screening Array (GSA). A manifest file for the latter will likely worker for data from the former, but you will end up missing some custom probes in doing so. Illumina only provides manifest files for custom arrays through their customer support

For Affymetrix data you will need to provide a CSV manifest file. If you are providing CEL files you will need to provide an XML option file and then a ZIP file including all the files listed within the XML option file. You will need to manually create the ZIP file. Alternatively, you can also provide a mix of SNP posterior files containing cluster information and either CHP files or calls TXT and summary TXT files containing genotype and intensities information, all files that can be generated with apt-probeset-genotype or the apt-genotype-axiom Affymetrix Power Tools softwares. However, only analysis types AxiomGT1 and birdseed are supported. In particular, Affymetrix arrays before the Genome-Wide Human SNP Array 6.0 are not supported

The vcf and pvcf modes require the user to provide a set of VCF files together with a master tracker table including sample IDs, computed gender, and call rate information. If the data is from DNA microarray cohorts, then the VCFs provided must include the INFO fields ALLELE_A, ALLELE_B, and GC and FORMAT fields GT, BAF, and LRR and we recommend using gtc2vcf to generate such a VCF. If the data is from WGS cohorts, then the VCFs provided must include the INFO field GC and the FORMAT fields GT and AD. In the pvcf mode the VCF file must be provided already phased and VCF files with variants to exclude from further analysis should also be provided. Notice that you can define a unique set of variants to exclude in the analysis across all batches through the optional file extra_xcl_vcf_file. This can be useful for WGS cohorts to exclude variants that are known from other analyses as having unreliable allelic balance due to misalignment issues. Notice also that for WGS cohorts multi-allelic variants should be split as explained here

Allowed columns in the sample table:

mode	gzipped	idat	gtc	cel	chp	txt	vcf	pvcf
sample_id		req.	req.	req.	req	req.	req.	req.
batch_id		req.	req.	req.	req	req.
computed_gender							req.	req.
call_rate							!wgs
green_idat	allowed	req.
red_idat	allowed	req.
gtc	allowed		req.
cel	allowed			req		req.
chp	allowed				req.

All files in this table can be provided in gzip format. The pipeline will process these seamlessly

It is extremely important that the sample_id column contains unique IDs. Repeated IDs will cause undefined behavior. You can use awk -F"\t" 'x[$1]++' sample.tsv to verify that the first column contains unique IDs. If this is not the case, you can use something like

awk -F"\t" -v OFS="\t" '{x[$1]++; if (x[$1]>1) $1=$1"-"(x[$1]-1); print}' sample.tsv

to generate a new table with additional suffixes in the sample IDs to make the IDs unique. It is instead allowed to have the same file names in other columns as long as the batch_id for these duplicates is different

When using the pipeline in idat, gtc, cel, or chp mode, it is extremely important that IDAT, GTC, CEL, or CHP files within the same batch come from the same DNA microarray model. Discrepancies across the input files within the same batch will cause undefined behavior. It is possible to use files from different DNA microarrays across batches but we only recommend to do so when these are different versions of the same array (e.g. Global Screening Array v1.0 and Global Screening Array v2.0). Do not combine in the same run batches from completely different arrays (e.g. Global Screening Array and Multi-Ethnic Global Array)

We further recommend batches of 4,000-5,000 samples as this is small enough to make most tasks able to run on preemptible computing and large enough to make MoChA able to perform effective within-batch adjustments for BAF and LRR. For DNA microarrays such as the Global Screening Array and the Multi-Ethnic Global Array, this batch sizes will generate VCFs smaller than, respectively, 20GB and 60GB

If using the idat mode, the green and red IDAT file names have to match and end, respectively, with suffixes _Grn.idat and _Red.idat. Due to a bug in the Illumina Array Analysis Platform software, IDAT filenames cannot include more than two _ characters and should be formatted as BARCODE_POSITION_(Red|Grn).idat or else the conversion to GTC will fail

When using the txt mode, you don't have to provide CEL files, but you have to provide the cel column with a list of CEL files names grouped by batch that match the CEL file names present in the calls TXT and summary TXT files. These will be used exclusively to rename the IDs, especially in situations where different batches contain the same CEL file IDs. You will also have to make sure that calls and summary tables contain the same samples in the same order and that these are indeed present in the report table or else the behavior will be undefined. To verify the list of samples in each table, you can use the following commands:

grep -v ^# AxiomGT1.calls.txt | head -n1 | tr '\t' '\n' | tail -n+2
grep -v ^# AxiomGT1.summary.txt | head -n1 | tr '\t' '\n' | tail -n+2
grep -v ^# AxiomGT1.report.txt | cut -f1 | tail -n+2

If you are using the pipeline in vcf or pvcf mode you have to supply computed_gender and call_rate information. This can be extracted from a previous run of the pipeline that included the conversion to VCF using a command like the following:

(echo -e "sample_id\tcomputed_gender\tcall_rate"; \
paste -d $'\t' sample_id.lines computed_gender.lines | \
paste -d $'\t' - call_rate.lines) > sample.tsv

If you are using the pipeline with VCFs from whole genome sequencing and you set the **wgs*8 option to true you can omit the call_rate column

Allowed columns in the batch table:

mode	gzipped	idat	gtc	cel	chp	txt	vcf	pvcf
batch_id		req.	req.	req.	req.	req.	req.	req.
csv	allowed	req.	req.	req.	req.	req.
sam	bam ok	opt.	opt.	opt.	opt.	opt.
bpm	allowed	req.	req.
egt	allowed	req.	req.
xml				req.
zip				req.
path		opt.	opt.	opt.	opt.	opt.	opt.	opt.
snp	allowed				req.	req.
probeset_ids	allowed			opt.	opt.	opt.
calls	allowed					req.
confidences	allowed					opt.
summary	allowed					req.
report	allowed					req.
vcf	bcf ok						req.	req.
vcf_index							req.	req.
xcl_vcf	bcf ok							req.
xcl_vcf_index								req.

Some files in this table can be provided in gzip format and the sam alignment file can be provided either as a SAM or as a BAM file. The pipeline will process these seamlessly

It is extremely important that the batch_id column contains unique IDs. Repeated IDs will cause undefined behavior. You can use awk -F"\t" 'x[$1]++' batch.tsv to verify that the first column contains unique IDs. It is also equally important that, if the boolean realign variable is left to its default false value, then the csv manifest files must be provided with respect to the same reference genome as the one selected in the ref_name variable. A mismatch in the two references will cause undefined behavior. For newer DNA microarrays, Illumina follows a convention of providing manifest files ending with the 1 suffix for GRCh37 (e.g. Multi-EthnicGlobal_D1.csv) amd ending with the 2 suffix for GRCh38 (e.g. Multi-EthnicGlobal_D2.csv). We recommend to always use GRCh38 with the latter type of manifest files and, whenever GRCh38 manifests are not available from Illumina, to still use GRCh38 by setting the boolean realign variable to true

If you are running the pipeline in idat or gtc mode, it is important that you provide the correct set of bpm, egt, and csv Illumina manifest files for each batch for the conversion from GTC to VCF to succeed

The snp files are usually the ones generated by the Affymetrix Power Tools as AxiomGT1.snp-posteriors.txt files. If the sam files are provided then the genome coordinates in the csv manifests will be updated during conversion to vcf even if the boolean flag realign is set to false

If the CSV manifest file is provided according to a genome reference different from the one you wish to run the MoChA analysis on, you can either provide a SAM/BAM file with realignments for the surrounding flanking sequences for each SNP as described here, or you can set the realign boolean flag to true so that the SNPs in the manifest files will be automatically realigned and, when the VCF files are created, the entries will be assigned coordinates for the new reference on the fly

To reduce redundancy in your tables, you can omit the paths of the files included in each group (as depicted in the previous figure) and include them once for each group in the optional variable manifest_path, ref_path, and in the optional path column in the batch_tsv_file table

The batch_id column defines batch membership through a categorical variable. Any strings can be used but the user should avoid to use a string containing a substring used internally by the pipeline (modifiable by the user though the variable delim) to refine batches in sub batches

Primary Options

The following are the primary options that you can set in the main input json file for use with mocha.wdl. Parameters that are indicated with ? are optional (unless required by the specific mode selected)

key	type	description
sample_set_id	String	cohort name that will be used as prefix for temporary and output files
mode	String	pipeline mode, one of: idat, gtc, cel, chp, txt, vcf, or pvcf
target	String?	pipeline final state, one of: vcf, pvcf, calls, or pngs [calls]
realign	Boolean?	whether manifest file should be realigned (not in vcf or pvcf mode) [false]
wgs	Boolean?	whether the input VCF contains a high coverage whole genome sequencing data [false]
gtc_output	Boolean?	whether to output the conversion from IDAT to GTC (only in idat mode) [false]
chp_output	Boolean?	whether to output the conversion from CEL to CHP (only in cel mode) [false]
idat_batch_size	Int?	largest batch size for conversion of IDAT files to GTC [256] (only in idat mode)
gtc_batch_size	Int?	largest batch size for conversion of GTC files to VCF [1024] (only in idat and gtc mode)
chp_batch_size	Int?	largest batch size for conversion of CHP files to VCF [1024] (only in cel and chp mode)
max_win_size_cm	Float?	maximum windows size in cM for phasing [50.0]
overlap_size_cm	Float?	required overlap size in cM for consecutive windows [5.0]
sample_call_rate_thr	Float?	Minimum sample call rate allowed for quality control and plotting purposes [0.97]
variant_call_rate_thr	Float?	Minimum sample call rate allowed for plotting purposes [0.97]
baf_auto_thr	Float?	Minimum sample call rate allowed for plotting purposes [0.03]
ext_string	String?	Extension suffix for VCF files with AS information [as]
ref_name	String?	name of reference genome, with resource default files for GRCh37 and GRCh38 [GRCh38]
ref_path	String?	path for reference genome resources (needed unless all resources are provided with full path)
ref_fasta	String?	reference sequence [GCA_000001405.15_GRCh38_no_alt_analysis_set.fna/human_g1k_v37.fasta]
min_chr_len	Int?	mimum length of chromosomes to use [2000000]
mhc_reg	String?	interval region for MHC [chr6:27518932-33480487/6:27486711-33448264]
kir_reg	String?	interval region for KIR [chr19:54071493-54992731/19:54574747-55504099]
nonpar_reg	String?	interval region for nonPAR [chrX:2781479-155700628/X:2699520-154930289]
dup_file	String?	file with location of segmental duplications [segdups.bed.gz]
genetic_map_file	String?	genetic map [genetic_map_hg38_withX.txt.gz/genetic_map_hg19_withX.txt.gz]
cnp_file	String?	file with location of copy number polymorphism [cnps.bed]
cyto_file	String?	file with location of cytoband regions [cytoBand.txt.gz]
panel_pfx	String?	prefix for phasing reference [1kGP_high_coverage_Illumina./ALL.chr]
panel_sfx	String?	suffix for phasing reference [.bcf/.phase3_integrated.20130502.genotypes.bcf]
panel_idx	String?	index extension for phasing reference [.bcf]
n_panel_smpls	Int?	number of samples in phasing reference [3202/2504]
manifest_path	String?	path for manifest file resources if these are provided without path []
sample_tsv_file	File	TSV file with sample information
batch_tsv_file	File	TSV file with batch information
data_path	String?	path for data files (overrides path column in batch_tsv_file)
pedigree_file	File?	optional pedigree file for improved phasing with trios
duplicate_samples_file	File?	optional file with list of duplicate samples that should not be use in task vcf_qc
extra_xcl_vcf_file	File?	optional VCF file with list of additional variants to exclude from analysis, mostly for WGS data
gtc2vcf_extra_args	String?	extra arguments for gtc2vcf
phase_extra_args	String?	extra arguments for SHAPEIT5
mocha_extra_args	String?	extra arguments for the MoChA plugin
basic_bash_docker	String?	docker to run basic bash scripts [debian:stable-slim]
pandas_docker	String?	docker to run task ref_scatter [amancevice/pandas:slim]
docker_repository	String?	location of docker images [us.gcr.io/mccarroll-mocha]
bcftools_docker	String?	docker to run tasks requiring BCFtools [bcftools:1.20-yyyymmdd]
apt_docker	String?	docker to run task cel2chp [apt:1.20-yyyymmdd]
shapeit5_docker	String?	docker to run task vcf_shapeit5 [shapeit5:1.20-yyyymmdd]
r_mocha_docker	String?	docker to run tasks mocha_{plot,summary} [r_mocha:1.20-yyyymmdd]

The ref_path variable should contain the path to the genome reference resources. These are available for download here for either the GRCh37 or GRCh38 human genome reference

However, if you do not provide the ref_path variable, variables ref_fasta, dup_file, genetic_map_file, cnp_file, cyto_file, and panel_pfx will need to be provided with their full path. Also notice that the reference genome file should come with the fasta index file and, if you request the manifest files to be realigned, you will need to make sure it also comes with the five corresponding bwa index files. The fasta index file needs to be such that the first 23 entries correspond to the 22 human autosomes and chromosome X, in no specific order

The manifest_path variable should contain the path to all the CSV/BPM/EGT/XML/ZIP/SAM files necessary to run the analyses. If these manifest files are located in different directories, then provide them with their full path and leave the manifest_path variable empty

Docker images will be automatically pulled by the specified docker_repository Google bucket. As these GCR buckets are Requester pays buckets, if you run computations in locations separate from where these buckets are localized, you will incur some additional costs. Docker images are located in us.gcr.io/mccarroll-mocha, eu.gcr.io/mccarroll-mocha, and asia.gcr.io/mccarroll-mocha covering, respectively, US, EU, and ASIA locations. If you are planning to run the pipeline with resources other than Google Cloud, then you can also use your own container repository. If you are running Cromwell on a computational framework that will simply download the images once and then reuse them, then you can also use gcr.io/mccarroll-mocha

Secondary Options

There are options specific to single tasks in the pipeline that can be used and they are mostly to handle specific corner cases. See the softwares involved to learn about what each option changes

key	type	task	description
table_output	Boolean	cel2chp	output matrices of tab delimited genotype calls and confidences [false]
do_not_use_reference	Boolean	vcf_shapeit5	whether to phase without using a reference panel [false]
use_shapeit5_ligate	Boolean	vcf_ligate	whether to use SHAPEIT5 ligate in place of BCFtools/concat --ligate
delim	String	{idat,gtc,chp}_scatter	string delimiter used to define IDAT/GTC/CHP sub batches ["~"]
chip_type	Array[String]	cel2chp	list of chip types to check library and CEL files against
tags	Array[String]	{gtc,chp,txt}2vcf	list of FORMAT tags to output in the VCF ["GT,BAF,LRR"]
gc_window_size	Int	{gtc,chp,txt}2vcf	window size in bp used to compute the GC content [200]

When using older manifest files the BPM sanity check for consistency between BPM files and GTC files might fail. In these cases, it is advised to turn the flag do_not_use_reference to true. Similarly, when using older Affymetrix arrays, the chip type information in the CEL files might not reflect the chip type information in the XML file. You can include in the chip_type array the chip type labels included in the CEL files

Outputs

After a pipeline run, assuming the target variable is set to the default pngs value, the following outputs will be generated:

key	type	idat	gtc	cel	chp	txt	vcf	pvcf	description
green_idat_tsv_file	File?	yes							summary table for green IDAT files
red_idat_tsv_file	File?	yes							summary table for red IDAT files
gtc_tsv_file	File?	yes	yes						summary table for GTC files
cel_tsv_file	File?			yes					summary table for CEL files
affy_tsv_file	File?			yes	yes	yes			summary table for CHP or TXT files
sample_id_file	File	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	sample ID list
computed_gender_file	File	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	sample computed gender list
call_rate_file	File?	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes		sample call rate list
mocha_stats_file	File?	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	summary table for samples processed with MoChA
mocha_calls_file	File?	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	table of mosaic chromosomal alterations calls
mocha_ucsc_bed	File?	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	bed file with mosaic chromosomal alterations calls
mocha_summary_pdf	File?	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	summary of MoChA run across all batches
mocha_pileup_pdf	File?	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	pileup of calls passing quality control filters
png_files	Array[File]?	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	single call plots for all calls passing filters
gtc_files	Array[File]?	yes							Illumina GTC files (if gtc_output is true)
chp_files	Array[File]?			yes					Affymetrix CHP files (if chp_output is true)
snp_files	Array[File]?			yes					Affymetrix SNP posteriors files (if chp_output)
vcf_files	Array[File]	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	output VCF files
vcf_idxs	Array[File]	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	output VCF indexes
pgt_vcf_files	Array[File]?	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes		output VCF files with phased GTs only
pgt_vcf_idxs	Array[File]?	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes		indexes for output VCF files with phased GTs only
xcl_vcf_file	File?	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes		VCF of variants excluded from analysis
xcl_vcf_idx	File?	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes		index for VCF of variants excluded from analysis
mocha_tsv_file	File	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	table with output VCF files

Illumina Example

The following example consists of 40 HapMap samples genotyped in 2007 with the Illumina HumanCNV370-Duov1 array

Download manifest data:

wget ftp://webdata:[email protected]/downloads/ProductFiles/HumanCNV370/HumanCNV370-Duo/humancnv370v1_c.bpm
wget ftp://webdata2:[email protected]/downloads/ProductFiles/HumanCNV370/HumanCNV370-Duo/HumanCNV370v1_C.egt
wget http://ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/geo/platforms/GPL6nnn/GPL6986/suppl/GPL6986_HumanCNV370v1_C.csv.gz
gunzip GPL6986_HumanCNV370v1_C.csv.gz
/bin/mv GPL6986_HumanCNV370v1_C.csv HumanCNV370v1_C.csv

Download IDAT files and sample trackers:

wget http://bioconductor.org/packages/release/data/annotation/src/contrib/hapmap370k_1.0.1.tar.gz
tar xzvf hapmap370k_1.0.1.tar.gz --strip-components=3 hapmap370k/inst/idatFiles
wget http://ftp.1000genomes.ebi.ac.uk/vol1/ftp/release/20130502/integrated_call_samples_v3.20200731.ALL.ped

Then make sure you copy all the IDAT files in the gs://{google-bucket}/idats Google bucket

Edit JSON file to run the WDL:

{
  "mocha.sample_set_id": "hapmap370k",
  "mocha.mode": "idat",
  "mocha.realign": true,
  "mocha.max_win_size_cm": 300.0,
  "mocha.overlap_size_cm": 5.0,
  "mocha.ref_name": "GRCh38",
  "mocha.ref_path": "gs://{google-bucket}/GRCh38",
  "mocha.manifest_path": "gs://{google-bucket}/manifests",
  "mocha.sample_tsv_file": "gs://{google-bucket}/tsvs/hapmap370k.sample.tsv",
  "mocha.batch_tsv_file": "gs://{google-bucket}/tsvs/hapmap370k.batch.tsv",
  "mocha.data_path": "gs://{google-bucket}/idats",
  "mocha.pedigree_file": "gs://{google-bucket}/hapmap370k.pedigree",
  "mocha.docker_repository": "us.gcr.io/mccarroll-mocha",
  "mocha.gtc2vcf_extra_args": "--do-not-check-bpm"
}

Notice that for this example we need the option gtc2vcf_extra_args includes --do-not-check-bpm due to the Illumina manifest being in an old format. For most use cases you can omit this option

The hapmap370k.batch.tsv table could look like this:

batch_id	csv	bpm	egt
A	HumanCNV370v1_C.csv	humancnv370v1_c.bpm	HumanCNV370v1_C.egt
B	HumanCNV370v1_C.csv	humancnv370v1_c.bpm	HumanCNV370v1_C.egt

This file can be generated with the following command:

(echo -e "batch_id\tcsv\tbpm\tegt"
echo -e "A\tHumanCNV370v1_C.csv\thumancnv370v1_c.bpm\tHumanCNV370v1_C.egt"
echo -e "B\tHumanCNV370v1_C.csv\thumancnv370v1_c.bpm\tHumanCNV370v1_C.egt") > hapmap370k.batch.tsv

The hapmap370k.sample.tsv table could look like this:

sample_id	batch_id	green_idat	red_idat
NA06991	A	4030186347_A_Grn.idat	4030186347_A_Red.idat
NA07000	B	4030186263_B_Grn.idat	4030186263_B_Red.idat
NA10859	B	4019585415_B_Grn.idat	4019585415_B_Red.idat
NA11882	B	4031058127_B_Grn.idat	4031058127_B_Red.idat
NA06993	B	4031058211_B_Grn.idat	4031058211_B_Red.idat
NA10851	A	4031058082_A_Grn.idat	4031058082_A_Red.idat
NA12057	A	4019585422_A_Grn.idat	4019585422_A_Red.idat
NA12057-1	B	4019585506_B_Grn.idat	4019585506_B_Red.idat
NA06993-1	A	4031058132_A_Grn.idat	4031058132_A_Red.idat
NA06994	B	4019585520_B_Grn.idat	4019585520_B_Red.idat
NA07029	A	4019585367_A_Grn.idat	4019585367_A_Red.idat
NA18502	A	4019585597_A_Grn.idat	4019585597_A_Red.idat
NA06985	A	4019585596_A_Grn.idat	4019585596_A_Red.idat
NA18500	A	4019585413_A_Grn.idat	4019585413_A_Red.idat
NA18501	A	4019585575_A_Grn.idat	4019585575_A_Red.idat
NA18501-1	B	4019585483_B_Grn.idat	4019585483_B_Red.idat
NA18502-1	B	4019585376_B_Grn.idat	4019585376_B_Red.idat
NA12155	B	4030186219_B_Grn.idat	4030186219_B_Red.idat
NA11994	A	4030186132_A_Grn.idat	4030186132_A_Red.idat
NA10859-1	A	4030186513_A_Grn.idat	4030186513_A_Red.idat
NA18506	B	4031058102_B_Grn.idat	4031058102_B_Red.idat
NA11882-1	A	4030186125_A_Grn.idat	4030186125_A_Red.idat
NA18858	B	4030186100_B_Grn.idat	4030186100_B_Red.idat
NA18912	A	4019585402_A_Grn.idat	4019585402_A_Red.idat
NA11881	B	4031058010_B_Grn.idat	4031058010_B_Red.idat
NA07034	A	4019585455_A_Grn.idat	4019585455_A_Red.idat
NA07000-1	A	4019585433_A_Grn.idat	4019585433_A_Red.idat
NA10851-1	B	4019585401_B_Grn.idat	4019585401_B_Red.idat
NA06991-1	B	4019585512_B_Grn.idat	4019585512_B_Red.idat
NA12056	B	4019585508_B_Grn.idat	4019585508_B_Red.idat
NA11993	B	4030186254_B_Grn.idat	4030186254_B_Red.idat
NA18912-1	B	4019585498_B_Grn.idat	4019585498_B_Red.idat
NA10860	B	4030186396_B_Grn.idat	4030186396_B_Red.idat
NA12156	A	4030186339_A_Grn.idat	4030186339_A_Red.idat
NA11993-1	A	4030186332_A_Grn.idat	4030186332_A_Red.idat
NA18505	A	4030186109_A_Grn.idat	4030186109_A_Red.idat
NA18503	A	4030186197_A_Grn.idat	4030186197_A_Red.idat
NA18504	B	4030186167_B_Grn.idat	4030186167_B_Red.idat
NA11995	B	4030186434_B_Grn.idat	4030186434_B_Red.idat
NA10861	A	4030186415_A_Grn.idat	4030186415_A_Red.idat

This file can be generated with the following command:

(echo -e "sample_id\tbatch_id\tgreen_idat\tred_idat"
awk -F, -v OFS="\t" '$1 in x {$1=$1"-1"}
  NR>1 {x[$1]++; print $1,substr($5,12),$5"_Grn.idat",$5"_Red.idat"}' samples370k.csv) > hapmap370k.sample.tsv

And the hapmap370k.ped file could look like this (only columns two to four are required):

1341	NA06991	NA06993	NA06985	2	0	CEU
1341	NA06991-1	NA06993	NA06985	2	0	CEU
1341	NA06991	NA06993-1	NA06985	2	0	CEU
1341	NA06991-1	NA06993-1	NA06985	2	0	CEU
1340	NA07029	NA06994	NA07000	1	0	CEU
1340	NA07029	NA06994	NA07000-1	1	0	CEU
1344	NA10851	NA12056	NA12057	1	0	CEU
1344	NA10851-1	NA12056	NA12057	1	0	CEU
1344	NA10851	NA12056	NA12057-1	1	0	CEU
1344	NA10851-1	NA12056	NA12057-1	1	0	CEU
1347	NA10859	NA11881	NA11882	2	0	CEU
1347	NA10859-1	NA11881	NA11882	2	0	CEU
1347	NA10859	NA11881	NA11882-1	2	0	CEU
1347	NA10859-1	NA11881	NA11882-1	2	0	CEU
1362	NA10860	NA11992	NA11993	1	0	CEU
1362	NA10860	NA11992	NA11993-1	1	0	CEU
1362	NA10861	NA11994	NA11995	2	0	CEU
Y004	NA18500	NA18501	NA18502	1	0	YRI
Y004	NA18500	NA18501-1	NA18502	1	0	YRI
Y004	NA18500	NA18501	NA18502-1	1	0	YRI
Y004	NA18500	NA18501-1	NA18502-1	1	0	YRI
Y005	NA18503	NA18504	NA18505	1	0	YRI

This file can be generated with the following command:

cut -d, -f1 samples370k.csv | \
  awk -v OFS="\t" 'NR==FNR {x[$1]++}
  NR>FNR && $2 in x && ($3 in x || $4 in x) {
  print $1,$2,$3,$4,$5,$6,$7
  if (x[$2]>1) print $1,$2"-1",$3,$4,$5,$6,$7
  if (x[$3]>1) print $1,$2,$3"-1",$4,$5,$6,$7
  if (x[$4]>1) print $1,$2,$3,$4"-1",$5,$6,$7
  if (x[$2]>1 && x[$3]>1) print $1,$2"-1",$3"-1",$4,$5,$6,$7
  if (x[$2]>1 && x[$4]>1) print $1,$2"-1",$3,$4"-1",$5,$6,$7
  if (x[$3]>1 && x[$4]>1) print $1,$2,$3"-1",$4"-1",$5,$6,$7}' \
  - integrated_call_samples_v3.20200731.ALL.ped > hapmap370k.ped
cut -f2-4 hapmap370k.ped > hapmap370k.pedigree

Affymetrix Example

The following example consists of 270 HapMap samples including 60 trios genotyped in 2007 with the Affymetrix Genome-Wide Human SNP Array 6.0

Download manifest data:

wget http://www.affymetrix.com/Auth/support/downloads/library_files/genomewidesnp6_libraryfile.zip
wget http://www.affymetrix.com/Auth/analysis/downloads/lf/genotyping/GenomeWideSNP_6/SNP6_supplemental_axiom_analysis_files.zip
wget http://www.affymetrix.com/Auth/analysis/downloads/na35/genotyping/GenomeWideSNP_6.na35.annot.csv.zip
unzip -oj genomewidesnp6_libraryfile.zip CD_GenomeWideSNP_6_rev3/Full/GenomeWideSNP_6/LibFiles/GenomeWideSNP_6.{cdf,chrXprobes,chrYprobes,specialSNPs}
unzip -o SNP6_supplemental_axiom_analysis_files.zip GenomeWideSNP_6.{generic_prior.txt,apt-probeset-genotype.AxiomGT1.xml,AxiomGT1.sketch}
mv GenomeWideSNP_6.apt-probeset-genotype.AxiomGT1.xml GenomeWideSNP_6.AxiomGT1.xml
unzip -o GenomeWideSNP_6.na35.annot.csv.zip GenomeWideSNP_6.na35.annot.csv
sed -i 's/chrX-probes/special-snps"       currentValue="GenomeWideSNP_6.specialSNPs" \/>\n        <Parameter name="chrX-probes/' GenomeWideSNP_6.AxiomGT1.xml
sed -i 's/target-sketch/read-models-brlmmp" currentValue="GenomeWideSNP_6.generic_prior.txt" \/>\n        <Parameter name="target-sketch/' GenomeWideSNP_6.AxiomGT1.xml
zip GenomeWideSNP_6.AxiomGT1.zip GenomeWideSNP_6.{cdf,chrXprobes,chrYprobes,specialSNPs,generic_prior.txt,AxiomGT1.sketch}
rm GenomeWideSNP_6.{cdf,chrXprobes,chrYprobes,specialSNPs,generic_prior.txt,AxiomGT1.sketch}

Download CEL files:

wget ftp://ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/hapmap/raw_data/hapmap3_affy6.0/{Broad_hapmap3_r2_Affy6_cels_excluded,SCALE,GIGAS,SHELF}.tgz
tar xzvf Broad_hapmap3_r2_Affy6_cels_excluded.tgz --strip-components=1 \
  Broad_hapmap3_r2_Affy6_cels_excluded/SCALE_g_GAINmixHapMapAffy1_GenomeWideEx_6_{H11_30996,D01_30828,F06_30912,C08_30938,H03_30868,D12_31004,F02_30848,B08_30936,B02_30840,C10_30970}.CEL \
  Broad_hapmap3_r2_Affy6_cels_excluded/GIGAS_g_GAINmixHapMapAffy2_GenomeWideEx_6_D09_31352.CEL \
  Broad_hapmap3_r2_Affy6_cels_excluded/SHELF_g_GAINmixHapMapAffy3_GenomeWideEx_6_{B05_31476,A01_31410,E05_31482,E04_31466,G11_31582}.CEL
echo {SCALE,GIGAS,SHELF} | tr ' ' '\n' | xargs -i tar xzvf {}.tgz

Then make sure you copy all the CEL files in the gs://{google-bucket}/cels Google bucket

Define options to run the WDL:

{
  "mocha.sample_set_id": "hapmapSNP6",
  "mocha.mode": "cel",
  "mocha.realign": true,
  "mocha.max_win_size_cm": 100.0,
  "mocha.overlap_size_cm": 5.0,
  "mocha.ref_name": "GRCh38",
  "mocha.ref_path": "gs://{google-bucket}/GRCh38",
  "mocha.manifest_path": "gs://{google-bucket}/manifests",
  "mocha.sample_tsv_file": "gs://{google-bucket}/tsvs/hapmapSNP6.sample.tsv",
  "mocha.batch_tsv_file": "gs://{google-bucket}/tsvs/hapmapSNP6.batch.tsv",
  "mocha.data_path": "gs://{google-bucket}/cels",
  "mocha.pedigree_file": "gs://{google-bucket}/hapmapSNP6.pedigree",
  "mocha.docker_repository": "us.gcr.io/mccarroll-mocha",
  "mocha.chip_type": ["GenomeWideEx_6"]
}

Notice that for this example we needed the chip_type secondary option set due to the CEL files containing the chip name GenomeWideEx_6 rather than GenomeWideSNP_6

The hapmapSNP6.batch.tsv table could look like this:

batch_id	csv	xml	zip
SCALE	GenomeWideSNP_6.na35.annot.csv	GenomeWideSNP_6.AxiomGT1.xml	GenomeWideSNP_6.AxiomGT1.zip
GIGAS	GenomeWideSNP_6.na35.annot.csv	GenomeWideSNP_6.AxiomGT1.xml	GenomeWideSNP_6.AxiomGT1.zip
SHELF	GenomeWideSNP_6.na35.annot.csv	GenomeWideSNP_6.AxiomGT1.xml	GenomeWideSNP_6.AxiomGT1.zip

The hapmapSNP6.sample.tsv and hapmapSNP6.ped files could be generated with the following commands:

wget ftp://ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/hapmap/raw_data/hapmap3_affy6.0/{passing,excluded}_cels_sample_map.txt
cat {passing,excluded}_cels_sample_map.txt | grep "SCALE\|GIGAS\|SHELF" | \
  awk -F"\t" -v OFS="\t" 'BEGIN {print "sample_id","batch_id","cel"}
  {sm=$1; if (sm in x) sm=sm"-"x[sm]; print sm,substr($2,1,5),$2; x[$1]++}' > hapmapSNP6.sample.tsv
wget ftp://ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/hapmap/phase_3/relationships_w_pops_051208.txt
awk -F"\t" -v OFS="\t" 'NR==FNR {x[$1]++} NR>FNR && $3 in x || $4 in x {print;
  if ($3"-1" in x) {$3=$3"-1"; print} if ($4"-1" in x) {$4=$4"-1"; print}}' \
  hapmapSNP6.batch.tsv relationships_w_pops_051208.txt > hapmapSNP6.ped
cut -f2-4 hapmapSNP6.ped > hapmapSNP6.pedigree

Filtering Output Calls

Once you have completed a full run of the MoChA pipeline, you will receive two tables, mocha_stats_tsv and mocha_calls_tsv, the first one with overall statistics about the samples, and the second one with the list of chromosomal alterations calls made by the MoChA software. The columns and suggestions for filtering in the table are described in the software documentation

Not all calls made by MoChA will be mosaic chromosomal alterations. These are some suggestions for how to think about filtering the calls:

• Calls with type CNP are inherited copy number polymorphism. To clean the data, MoChA attempts to call common deletions and duplications during the first pass through the data. These can be safely removed from your callset
• Calls with lod_baf_phase less than 10 are often constitutional rather than mosaic events. Constitutional events are more likely to be germline rather than somatic
• Calls with length less than 500 kbp and rel_cov greater than 2.5 are often germline duplications that can have a strong allelic imbalance signal. It might be difficult to distinguish these alterations from genuine somatic amplifications but to edge on the conservative side we recommend to filter these out unless in loci with strong prior evidence for mosaicism
• Samples that have low call_rate (by default Illumina and Affymetrix recommend less than 0.97) or high baf_auto values (by default we recommend a 0.03 threshold, although the correct threshold could depend on DNA microarray type) could be low quality or contaminated samples with widespread allelic imbalance across the genome. Plotting the values for these two statistics can help identify outliers and select the correct thresholds

After filtering out your callset, plotting the prevalence of the number of samples with mosaic chromosomal alterations as a function of age might provide the best evidence for an acceptable filtering strategy if young individuals have little to no evidence for mosaicism. Notice that there is not one unique strategy that works across all datasets. Chromosome X and 15q11 might require special care. If your samples are from cell lines for example, the inactive X and the paternal region in 15q11 tend to replicate later than their active counterparts due to epigenetic mechanisms and this can cause both regions to exhibit significant amounts of allelic imbalance that is of replication timing origin

Scattered Tasks

The workflow consists of the following scattered tasks:

task	description
csv2bam	realigns the sequences in the manifest files to the reference genome
idat2gtc/cel2chp	converts raw intensity IDAT/CEL files to GTC/CHP files with genotypes
{gtc,chp,txt}2vcf	imports genotypes and intensities to a compliant set of VCF files
{gtc,chp}2vcf_merge	merges previous outputs across sub bactches to make single batch VCFs
vcf_scatter	extracts genotypes and scatter the VCF files across the genome windows
vcf_merge	joins the VCF files into VCF slices including all samples across batches
vcf_qc	identifies a subset of variants that performed poorly
vcf_phase	phases each genome window across the whole cohort
vcf_split	splits the phased VCF slices back into VCF shards
vcf_concat	concatenates the VCF shards back into VCF files for each batch
vcf_import	imports the phased genotypes back into the original VCFs
vcf_mocha	runs the MoChA framework across batches
mocha_plot	plots the most confident events called by MoChA across batches

To make best use of the elasticity of cloud computing, the pipeline attempts to achieve parallelization in four different ways:

• by splitting the conversion from IDAT to GTC in small sub batches (controlled by idat_batch_size)
• by splitting the conversion from GTC to VCF in small sub batches (controlled by gtc_batch_size)
• by splitting the conversion from CHP to VCF in small sub batches (controlled by chp_batch_size)
• by splitting the genome in overlapping windows each phased independently (controlled by max_win_size_cm and overlap_size_cm)

All tasks but the phasing tasks are set by default to run on a single CPU. All tasks but cel2chp and txt2vcf are set by default to run on preemptible computing on the first run, and to then proceed to run as non-preemptible is they are preempted

Terra has a 2,300 task limit per project (called "Hog Limits") but a single job should work well within this limit. Tasks idat2gtc/cel2chp and tasks {gtc,chp,txt}2vcf will output tables with metadata about their input files which will be aggregated across batches. From personal experience, even running a small cohort takes a minimum of ~1 hour on Terra, as there are enough housekeeping tasks that need to be run

Principal Components Pipeline

The association pipeline can be used to exclusively compute the principal components. If you do not separately have principal components computed for your cohort through other means, you will have to compute the principal components with a separate run of the association pipeline and then include them manually in your covariate file

Define options to run the principal components analysis of the pipeline:

{
  "assoc.sample_set_id": "hapmap370k",
  "assoc.remove_samples_file": "gs://{google-bucket}/tsvs/hapmap370k.remove.lines",
  "assoc.step1": false,
  "assoc.pca": true,
  "assoc.step2": false,
  "assoc.pca_ndim": 20,
  "assoc.pca_cpus": 4,
  "assoc.ref_name": "GRCh38",
  "assoc.ref_path": "gs://{google-bucket}/GRCh38",
  "assoc.mocha_tsv_file": "gs://{google-bucket}/tsvs/hapmap370k.mocha.tsv",
  "assoc.mocha_data_path": "gs://{google-bucket}/vcfs",
  "assoc.sample_tsv_file": "gs://{google-bucket}/tsvs/hapmap370k.stats.tsv",
  "assoc.docker_repository": "us.gcr.io/mccarroll-mocha"
}

The pipeline will generate the file hapmap370k.pcs.tsv including the loadings for the selected number of principal components. Do notice that for large biobanks it can take a significant amount of time to compute the principal components. The computation follows the method of FastPCA which, given M is the number of markers, N is the number of samples, and K is the number of principal components to compute, has a computational complexity of O(MNK + MK² + NK²) and requires 16 (M + N + max(M,N)) K² + 5760 N bytes of memory when run with PLINK2

Imputation pipeline

Once you have run the MoChA pipeline you will obtain as an output an array of pgt_vcf_files VCF files (one per batch). These files can be used as a basis for imputation and then to extend the mosaic chromosomal calls to imputed variants to build a map of which alleles are over-represented and under-represented. Imputation can be run with IMPUTE5 or with Beagle5, and both require as input VCF files without missing or unphased genotypes. Notice that, while Beagle5 is completely open source and released under the GPLv3 license, the source code for IMPUTE5 is not provided and the software is intended only for academics carrying out research and not for use by consumers or commercial business. If you are interested in using this imputation pipeline commercially, you can start using Beagle5 by setting the corresponding boolean flag in the pipeline and then negotiate a license for IMPUTE5 if the cost savings apply to you. We have observed IMPUTE5 to be 2-3x cheaper to run than Beagle5

The following are the primary options that you can set in the main input json file for use with impute.wdl

key	type	description
sample_set_id	String	cohort name that will be used as prefix for temporary and output files
mode	String?	pipeline mode, one of: pgt or imp [pgt]
target	String?	pipeline final state, one of: imp or ext [ext]
max_win_size_cm	Float?	maximum windows size in cM for phasing [10.0]
overlap_size_cm	Float?	required overlap size in cM for consecutive windows [2.0]
format_id	String?	format ID to extend to imputed haplotypes [AS]
ext_string	String?	extension string for the imputed VCF with the extended format [as]
target_chrs	Array[String]?	list of chromosomes to impute
ref_name	String?	name of reference genome, with resource default files for GRCh37 and GRCh38 [GRCh38]
ref_path	String?	path for reference genome resources (needed unless all resources are provided with full path)
ref_fasta_fai	String?	reference sequence index [GCA_000001405.15_GRCh38_no_alt_analysis_set.fna.fai/human_g1k_v37.fasta.fai]
min_chr_len	Int?	mimum length of chromosomes to use [3000000]
n_x_chr	Int?	number of of the X chromosome [23]
mhc_reg	String?	interval region for MHC [chr6:27518932-33480487/6:27486711-33448264]
genetic_map_file	String?	genetic map [genetic_map_hg38_withX.txt.gz/genetic_map_hg19_withX.txt.gz]
panel_pfx	String?	prefix for phasing reference [1kGP_high_coverage_Illumina./ALL.chr]
panel_sfx	String?	Suffix for phasing reference [.bcf/.phase3_integrated.20130502.genotypes.bcf]
panel_idx	String?	index extension for phasing reference [.bcf]
n_panel_smpls	Int?	number of samples in phasing reference [3202/2504]
mocha_tsv_file	File	TSV file with batch information (e.g. output table from mocha.wdl)
mocha_data_path	String?	path for data files (overrides path column in mocha_tsv_file)
impute_data_path	String?	path for imputation data files (overrides path column in mocha_tsv_file)
remove_samples_file	File?	optional file with list of samples that should not be imputed
beagle	Boolean?	whether to run Beagle5 rather than IMPUTE5 [false]
out_ds	Boolean?	whether imputation VCFs should contain the FORMAT/DS field (Genotype dosages) [true]
out_gp	Boolean?	whether imputation VCFs should contain the FORMAT/GP field (Genotype probabilities) [false]
out_ap	Boolean?	whether imputation VCFs should contain the FORMAT/AP field (ALT haplotype probabilities) [false]
impute_extra_args	String?	extra arguments for IMPUTE5/Beagle5
basic_bash_docker	String?	docker to run basic bash scripts [debian:stable-slim]
pandas_docker	String?	docker to run task ref_scatter [amancevice/pandas:slim]
docker_repository	String?	location of docker images [us.gcr.io/mccarroll-mocha]
bcftools_docker	String?	docker to run tasks requiring BCFtools [bcftools:1.20-yyyymmdd]
impute5_docker	String?	docker to run tasks requiring IMPUTE5 [impute5:1.20-yyyymmdd]
beagle5_docker	String?	docker to run tasks requiring Beagle5 [beagle5:1.20-yyyymmdd]

Make sure all the pgt_vcf_files from the MoChA pipeline are first available in the gs://{google-bucket}/vcfs directory, together with the vcf_files including the MoChA calls. We strongly advise to use max_win_size_cm smaller than 30.0 as imputation of large chromosome windows can be prohibitevely memory intensive due to the high density of variants in the reference panels

Define options to run the WDL:

{
  "impute.sample_set_id": "hapmap370k",
  "impute.mode": "pgt",
  "impute.target": "ext",
  "impute.max_win_size_cm": 10.0,
  "impute.overlap_size_cm": 2.0,
  "impute.target_chrs": ["chr12", "chrX"],
  "impute.ref_name": "GRCh38",
  "impute.ref_path": "gs://{google-bucket}/GRCh38",
  "impute.mocha_tsv_file": "gs://{google-bucket}/tsvs/hapmap370k.mocha.tsv",
  "impute.mocha_data_path": "gs://{google-bucket}/vcfs",
  "impute.beagle": false,
  "impute.docker_repository": "us.gcr.io/mccarroll-mocha"
}

If you want to impute all chromosomes, you can omit the impute.target_chrs option. As there is no way to determine the amount of memory required by IMPUTE5 to impute a given window, currently we advise to not use imputing windows larger then 10 centimorgans (i.e. max_win_size_cm≤10), or else the imputation tasks might fail

The mocha_tsv_file input table should look like this:

batch_id	n_smpls	vcf	vcf_index	pgt_vcf	pgt_vcf_index
A	20	hapmap370k.A.as.bcf	hapmap370k.A.as.bcf.csi	hapmap370k.A.pgt.bcf	hapmap370k.A.pgt.bcf.csi
B	20	hapmap370k.B.as.bcf	hapmap370k.B.as.bcf.csi	hapmap370k.B.pgt.bcf	hapmap370k.B.pgt.bcf.csi

The output mocha_tsv_file from the MoChA pipeline will include these columns. If you are only interested in imputing genotype without extending the MoChA calls, you do not need to include columns vcf and vcf_index

Notice that the imputation pipeline acts independently on each batch and on each chromosome so that you do not have to run all batches and chromosomes at once in one job. Running imputation as multiple jobs will not affect the final result. You can control which batches are imputed through the mocha_tsv_file input table and you can control which chromosomes are imputed through the target_chrs string array

The workflow consists of the following scattered tasks:

task	description	run if and only if
get_panel_markers	retrieve size of the reference panel from the VCF index files	mode is pgt
panel_scatter	splits reference panel chromosome VCF files into required windows	mode is pgt
init panel	generates site only reference panel VCF and convert to IMPUTE5/Beagle format	mode is pgt
vcf_scatter	splits phased genotype batches into required windows	mode is pgt
vcf_impute	imputes haplotypes across windows and batches	mode is pgt
vcf_ligate	concatenate imputed haplotypes into single chromosome VCFs across batches	mode is pgt
get_markers	retrieve size of each imputed VCF from the VCF index files	target is ext
vcf_extend	extend format field across imputed haplotypes	target is ext

If you already have been provided with imputation VCFs, you might prefer to avoid running imputation again. In this case, it is possible to run only the extension part of the pipeline which will extend allelic shift information for MoChA calls from genotyped to imputed heterozygous sites. However, the pipeline expects the data to be split by chromosomes and the same batches used by the MoChA pipeline. If you have been provided with chromosome imputed VCFs for the whole cohort, you will have manually split these across batches. You might also want to only work with genotypes rather than dosages and genotype probabilities to avoid generating redundant files. If you have a sample_tsv_file, you can use it as follows to split a VCF in batches:

for chr in {1..22} X; do
  awk -F "\t" -v OFS="\t" -v chr=$chr 'NR==1 {for (i=1; i<=NF; i++) f[$i] = i}
    NR>1 {print $(f["sample_id"]),"-","hapmap370k."$(f["batch_id"])".chr"chr}' hapmap370k.sample.tsv > samples_file.txt
  bcftools annotate --no-version -Ou -x QUAL,FILTER,INFO,^FMT/GT hapmap370k.chr$chr.vcf.gz | bcftools +split -o . -Ob -G samples_file.txt
  cut -f3 samples_file.txt | sort | uniq | xargs -i bcftools index -f {}.bcf
done

Make sure you are using BCFtools version 1.14 or newer, as previous versions are missing the required splitting functionality. Notice that the above command will also strip the imputed VCF of all attributes except ID and FMT/GT, as this will allow the allelic shift pipeline to run faster

Allelic Shift Pipeline

The following are the primary options that you can set in the main input json file for use with shift.wdl

key	type	description
sample_set_id	String	cohort name that will be used as prefix for temporary and output files
keep_samples_file	File?	optional file with list of samples to keep
remove_samples_file	File?	optional file with list of samples to remove
pheno_tsv_file	File	phenotype table with phenotypes that need to be tested
as_id	String?	allelic shift ID [AS]
ext_string	String	extension string for the imputed VCF with the extended format [as.sites]
pop	String?	optional suffix for phenotype names, usually one of AFR, EAS, EUR, AMR, or SAS
ref_name	String?	name of reference genome, with resource default files for GRCh37 and GRCh38 [GRCh38]
ref_path	String?	path for reference genome resources (needed unless all resources are provided with full path)
ref_fasta	String?	reference sequence [GCA_000001405.15_GRCh38_no_alt_analysis_set.fna/human_g1k_v37.fasta]
ref_fasta_fai	String?	reference sequence index [GCA_000001405.15_GRCh38_no_alt_analysis_set.fna.fai/human_g1k_v37.fasta.fai]
chr_prefix	String?	whether chromosome contigs have a chromosome prefix [chr/]
n_x_chr	Int?	number of of the X chromosome [23]
cyto_file	String?	file with location of cytoband regions [cytoBand.txt.gz]
gff3_file	String?	gene models file
rsid_vcf_file	String?	VCF file with dbSNP IDs as integers in the INFO/RS field
rsid_vcf_idx	String?	index for VCF file with dbSNP IDs as integers in the INFO/RS field
impute_tsv_file	File	TSV file with batch information (e.g. output table from impute.wdl)
impute_data_path	String?	path for data files (overrides path column in impute_tsv_file)
fisher_exact	Boolean?	whether to additionally run a Fisher's exact test for selected vs. unselected samples [true]
drop_genotypes	Boolean?	whether to drop genotypes after computing allelic shift counts [true]
phred_score	Boolean?	whether the binomial p-values should be recorded as phred scores [true]
plot	Boolean?	whether to generate a summary plot [true]
basic_bash_docker	String?	docker to run basic bash scripts [debian:stable-slim]
docker_repository	String?	location of docker images [us.gcr.io/mccarroll-mocha]
bcftools_docker	String?	docker to run tasks requiring BCFtools [bcftools:1.20-yyyymmdd]
r_mocha_docker	String?	docker to run task shift_plot [r_mocha:1.20-yyyymmdd]

If you wanted to study allelic shift for a range of chromosomal alterations types, including mosaic loss of chromosomes X (mLOX or LOX), you could define samples to be removed from analysis and a table with phenotypes associated to each chromosomal alteration type as explained here

Define options to run the WDL:

{
  "shift.sample_set_id": "hapmap370k",
  "shift.remove_samples_file": "gs://{google-bucket}/tsvs/hapmap370k.remove.lines",
  "shift.pheno_tsv_file": "gs://{google-bucket}/tsvs/hapmap370k.pheno.tsv",
  "shift.ref_name": "GRCh38",
  "shift.ref_path": "gs://{google-bucket}/GRCh38",
  "shift.impute_tsv_file": "gs://{google-bucket}/tsvs/hapmap370k.impute.tsv",
  "shift.impute_data_path": "gs://{google-bucket}/imp_vcfs",
  "shift.docker_repository": "us.gcr.io/mccarroll-mocha"
}

The impute_tsv_file input table should look like this:

batch_id	chr1_imp_vcf	chr1_imp_vcf_index	...	chrX_imp_vcf	chrX_imp_vcf_index
A	hapmap370k.A.chr1.as.bcf	hapmap370k.A.chr1.as.bcf.csi	...	hapmap370k.A.chrX.as.bcf	hapmap370k.A.chrX.as.bcf.csi
B	hapmap370k.B.chr1.as.bcf	hapmap370k.B.chr1.as.bcf.csi	...	hapmap370k.B.chrX.as.bcf	hapmap370k.B.chrX.as.bcf.csi

The output impute_tsv_file from the imputation pipeline will include these columns

Once successfully run, the allelic shift pipeline will output one GWAS-VCF per phenotype, such as hapmap370k.as_X_loss.gwas.bcf, with an AS INFO filed containing allelic shift counts. If you have two (or more) such VCFs from multiple cohorts (e.g. hapmap370k.as_X_loss.gwas.bcf and hapmapSNP6.as_X_loss.gwas.bcf), these can be easily combined with the following command:

bcftools merge --no-version --output-type u -i MACH:sum,AS:sum -m none hapmap370k.as_X_loss.gwas.bcf hapmapSNP6.as_X_loss.gwas.bcf | \
  bcftools +mochatools --no-version --output-type b --output hapmap.as_X_loss.bcf -- --test AS --phred --drop-genotypes

And then converted to a GWAS-VCF file with the following:

(echo "CHROM GENPOS ALLELE0 ALLELE1 N INFO N_CASES BETA SE LOG10P A1FREQ AC_ALLELE1";
bcftools query --format "%CHROM\t%POS\t%REF\t%ALT\t%MACH{0}\t%MACH{1}\t%MACH{2}\t%AS{0}\t%AS{1}\t%pbinom_AS\n" hapmap.as_X_loss.bcf | \
awk -F"\t" '{if ($6*($5-$6/2)==0) si=1; else si=($5*$7/$6-$6)/($5-$6/2);
  nc=$8+$9; es=log(($9+.5)/($8+.5)); se=sqrt(1/($8+.5)+1/($9+.5)); lp=$10/10; af=$6/$5/2; ac=$6;
  print $1,$2,$3,$4,$5,si,nc,es,se,lp,af,ac}') | \
bcftools +munge --no-version -c REGENIE --fai $HOME/GRCh38/GCA_000001405.15_GRCh38_no_alt_analysis_set.fna.fai -s as_X_loss | \
bcftools merge --no-version --merge none --no-index --output-type b --output hapmap.as_X_loss.gwas.bcf hapmap.as_X_loss.bcf -

If gff3_file is provided as input, coding variants in the VCF will be annotated. Similarly if rsid_vcf_file and rsid_vcf_idx are provided as input, variants will be annotated with dbSNP rsIDs

Association Pipeline

The association pipeline will run the regenie whole genome regression model for multiple phenotypes input by the user. It is implemented following further parallelization of the step 1 and by computing regression across phenotypes distributed across genome windows and Leave One Chromosome Out (LOCO) predictions distributed across phenotypes. It will optionally also compute approximate principal components and cis-associations with excess heterozygosity for mCA phenotypes using PLINK. Outputs will be indexed tables with summary statistics results that can be readily uploaded in LocusZoom or LocalZoom. While step 1 of the analysis is relatively inexpensive to run, step 2 will incur moderate costs, so we advise to first run the pipeline on a small number of batches at once to make sure it produces the expected output

The following are the primary options that you can set in the main input json file for use with assoc.wdl

key	type	description
sample_set_id	String	cohort name that will be used as prefix for temporary and output files
sex_specific	String?	whether the analysis should be restricted only to male or female sex (do not specify otherwise)
max_win_size_cm_step2	Float?	maximum windows size in cM for running regressions in regenie step 2 [20.0]
sample_tsv_file	File	TSV file with sample information (must include sample_id and computed_gender columns)
keep_samples_file	File?	optional file with list of samples to keep
remove_samples_file	File?	optional file with list of samples to remove
min_mac_step1	Int?	minimum minor allele count for regenie step 1 [10]
min_maf_step1	Float?	minimum minor allele frequency for regenie step 1 [0.01]
min_mac_step2	Int?	minimum minor allele count for regenie step 2 [10]
min_info_step2	Float?	minimum imputation info score (IMPUTE/MACH R^2) for regenie step 2
covar_tsv_file	File?	TSV file with covariates information (must include sample_id column and not include sex)
pheno_tsv_file	File?	TSV file with phenotypes that need to be tested (must include sample_id column)
pop	String?	optional suffix for phenotype names, usually one of AFR, EAS, EUR, AMR, or SAS
dosage_field	String?	dosage field to use in imputed input VCFs [DS]
space_character	String?	indicates how to convert spaces in sample IDs for analyses with regenie and PLINK [_]
binary	Boolean?	whether the phenotypes tested are binary phenotypes [true]
min_case_count	Int?	binary phenotypes with lower case count will be excluded from analysis [20]
min_sex_count	Int?	phenotypes with lower counts for each of the tested sexes will be excluded from analysis [20]
bsize_step1	Int?	size of the genotype blocks for regenie step 1 [1000]
bsize_step2	Int?	size of the genotype blocks for regenie step 2 [400]
max_vif	Float?	maximum variance inflation factor for PLINK multicollinearity check [2000]
max_corr	Float?	maximum absolute value of the correlation between two predictors [0.9999]
cis_plot_min_af	Float?	minimum minor allele frequey for plotting PLINK cis-associations [0.01]
loocv	Boolean?	whether to use leave-one out cross validation [true]
regenie_step0_extra_args	String?	extra arguments for regenie when computing the level 0 predictions
regenie_step1_extra_args	String?	extra arguments for regenie when computing the Leave One Chromosome Out (LOCO) predictions
regenie_step2_extra_args	String?	extra arguments for regenie when computing the association tests
plink_extra_args	String?	extra arguments for PLINK when running in-cis associations for excess heterozygosity
step1	Boolean?	whether to compute the prediction through regenie step 1 [true]
pgt_output	Boolean?	whether to output the pruned PLINK 1.9 files generated during step 1 [false]
pca	Boolean?	whether to compute approximate principal component loadings [false] (it requires at least 50 samples)
step2	Boolean?	whether to compute association tests through regenie step 2 [true]
cis	Boolean?	whether to compute in-cis associations for excess heterozygosity using PLINK [false]
plot	Boolean?	whether to generate a summary Manhattan plot [true]
pca_ndim	Integer?	number of principal components for which to report loadings if requested [20]
pca_cpus	Integer?	number of expected CPUs to use when computing the principal components [2]
input_loco_lst	File?	regenie _pred.list file with list of LOCO predictions files for step 2
input_loco_path	String?	regenie .loco.gz files containing LOCO predictions for each phenotype
input_firth_lst	File?	regenie _firth.list file with list of Firth covariates regressions files for step 2
input_firth_path	String?	regenie .firth.gz files containing Firth covariates regressions for each phenotype
ref_name	String?	name of reference genome, with resource default files for GRCh37 and GRCh38 [GRCh38]
ref_path	String?	path for reference genome resources (needed unless all resources are provided with full path)
ref_fasta	String?	reference sequence [GCA_000001405.15_GRCh38_no_alt_analysis_set.fna/human_g1k_v37.fasta]
ref_fasta_fai	String?	reference sequence index [GCA_000001405.15_GRCh38_no_alt_analysis_set.fna.fai/human_g1k_v37.fasta.fai]
min_chr_len	Int?	mimum length of chromosomes to use [3000000]
n_x_chr	Int?	number of of the X chromosome [23]
par_bp1	Int?	last base pair for the PAR1 region of the X chromosome [2781479/2699520]
par_bp2	Int?	first base pair for the PAR2 region of the X chromosome [155701383/154931044]
cyto_file	String?	file with location of cytoband regions [cytoBand.txt.gz]
genetic_map_file	String?	genetic map [genetic_map_hg38_withX.txt.gz/genetic_map_hg19_withX.txt.gz]
pca_exclusion_regions	String?	regions to exclude from PCA [5:...,6:...,8:...,11:...]
gff3_file	String?	gene models file
rsid_vcf_file	String?	VCF file with dbSNP IDs as integers in the INFO/RS field
rsid_vcf_idx	String?	index for VCF file with dbSNP IDs as integers in the INFO/RS field
mocha_tsv_file	File?	TSV file with batch information for phased VCF files (e.g. output table from mocha.wdl)
mocha_data_path	String?	path for phased VCF files (overrides path column in mocha_tsv_file)
impute_tsv_file	File?	TSV file with batch information for imputed VCF files (e.g. output table from impute.wdl)
impute_data_path	String?	path for imputed VCF files (overrides path column in impute_tsv_file)
basic_bash_docker	String?	docker to run basic bash scripts [debian:stable-slim]
pandas_docker	String?	docker to run task ref_scatter [amancevice/pandas:slim]
docker_repository	String?	location of docker images [us.gcr.io/mccarroll-mocha]
bcftools_docker	String?	docker to run tasks requiring BCFtools [bcftools:1.20-yyyymmdd]
regenie_docker	String?	docker to run tasks requiring regenie and PLINK [regenie:1.20-yyyymmdd]
r_mocha_docker	String?	docker to run task assoc_plot [r_mocha:1.20-yyyymmdd]

You can define samples to be removed from analysis and a table with phenotypes associated to each chromosomal alteration type as explained here

We advise including age, and age², and up to 20 principal components in your covariates file. The covariate file should not include sex as a covariate, as this will be automatically added when sex_specific is not defined. If you want to run a sex specific analysis, e.g. if you are testing mosaic loss of Y (mLOY or LOY) or mosaic loss of X (mLOX or LOX), the sex_specific variable must be equal to either male or female

Define options to run the regenie step 1 and 2 components of the pipeline:

{
  "assoc.sample_set_id": "hapmap370k",
  "assoc.max_win_size_cm_step2": 10.0,
  "assoc.pheno_tsv_file": "gs://{google-bucket}/tsvs/hapmap370k.pheno.tsv",
  "assoc.binary": true,
  "assoc.step1": true,
  "assoc.pca": false,
  "assoc.step2": true,
  "assoc.cis": false,
  "assoc.ref_name": "GRCh38",
  "assoc.ref_path": "gs://{google-bucket}/GRCh38",
  "assoc.mocha_tsv_file": "gs://{google-bucket}/tsvs/hapmap370k.mocha.tsv",
  "assoc.mocha_data_path": "gs://{google-bucket}/vcfs",
  "assoc.impute_tsv_file": "gs://{google-bucket}/tsvs/hapmap370k.impute.tsv",
  "assoc.impute_data_path": "gs://{google-bucket}/imp_vcfs",
  "assoc.remove_samples_file": "gs://{google-bucket}/lines/hapmap370k.remove.lines",
  "assoc.sample_tsv_file": "gs://{google-bucket}/tsvs/hapmap370k.stats.tsv",
  "assoc.covar_tsv_file": "gs://{google-bucket}/tsvs/hapmap370k.covar.tsv",
  "assoc.docker_repository": "us.gcr.io/mccarroll-mocha"
}

Notice that if you want you can run step 1 and step 2 of the association pipeline as two separate steps. It is also okay for mocha_tsv_file and impute_tsv_file to be the same file rather than separate files. If separate files, the two tables should have the same list of batch IDs. The output mocha_tsv_file from the MoChA pipeline and the output impute_tsv_file from the imputation pipeline can be used here

When step2 is true, the pipeline will output one tabix indexed summary statistics file for each phenotype analyzed that can be loaded into LocusZoom as is and it will output a single GWAS-VCF for all phenotypes. If gff3_file is provided as input, coding variants in the VCF will be annotated. To make this step more parallelized, you can choose a smaller max_win_size_cm_step2

Similarly, if rsid_vcf_file and rsid_vcf_idx are provided as input, variants will be annotated with dbSNP rsIDs

To obtains a gff3_file and an rsid_vcf_file follow the installation steps here

Polygenic Score Pipeline

The following are the primary options that you can set in the main input json file for use with score.wdl

key	type	description
sample_set_id	String	cohort name that will be used as prefix for temporary and output files
sample_header	String?	what column header to use for the column with samples IDs [sample_id]
region	String?	region to extract for polygenic score analysis
tag	String?	VCF format tag to use for polygenic score computation among GP, AP, HDS, DS, GT, and AS
ext_string	String?	extension string for the output polygenic score table [scores]
colheaders_tsv_file	File?	column headers from tab-delimited file required if summary statistics are tab-delimited files
summary_path	String?	path for summary statistics files (unless all files are provided with full path)
summary_files	Array[String]	summary statistics files
summary_idxs	Array[String]?	summary statistics files indexes (if score files provided as VCF)
q_score_thr	Array[Float]?	list of p-value thresholds
covar_tsv_file	File?	covariate file to be used to computed adjusted polygenic scores
ref_name	String?	name of reference genome, with resource default files for GRCh37 and GRCh38 [GRCh38]
ref_path	String?	path for reference genome resources (needed unless all resources are provided with full path)
ref_fasta_fai	String?	reference sequence index [GCA_000001405.15_GRCh38_no_alt_analysis_set.fna.fai/human_g1k_v37.fasta.fai]
min_chr_len	Int?	mimum length of chromosomes to use [2000000]
impute_tsv_file	File	TSV file with batch information (e.g. output table from mocha.wdl)
impute_data_path	String?	path for data files (overrides path column in impute_tsv_file)
samples_file	File?	list of samples to include in the polygenic score analysis
exclude_str	String?	exclusion criterias for variants (e.g. [SI<0.8] or [INFO<0.8]) not to be used with include_str
include_str	String?	inclusion criterias for variants (e.g. [AF>0.01 && AF<0.99]) not to be used with exclude_str
basic_bash_docker	String?	docker to run basic bash scripts [debian:stable-slim]
docker_repository	String?	location of docker images [us.gcr.io/mccarroll-mocha]
bcftools_docker	String?	docker to run tasks requiring BCFtools [bcftools:1.20-yyyymmdd]
r_mocha_docker	String?	docker to run task adj_scores [r_mocha:1.20-yyyymmdd]

Download polygenic scores summary statistics for blood cell counts and liftOver to GRCh38 (requires munge BCFtools plugin from here):

for i in {163..191}; do
  wget http://ftp.ebi.ac.uk/pub/databases/spot/pgs/scores/PGS000$i/ScoringFiles/PGS000$i.txt.gz
  zcat PGS000$i.txt.gz | liftover.sh columns.tsv hg19ToHg38.over.chain.gz | \
  bcftools +munge --no-version -Ou -C columns.tsv -f GCA_000001405.15_GRCh38_no_alt_analysis_set.fna -s PGS000$i | \
  bcftools sort -Ou | bcftools norm --no-version -Ob -o PGS000$i.hg38.bcf -c w -d none -f GCA_000001405.15_GRCh38_no_alt_analysis_set.fna
done
bcftools merge --no-version --merge none --no-index --output PGS.hg38.bcf --output-type b --write-index PGS000{163..191}.hg38.bcf
/bin/rm PGS000{163..191}.hg38.bcf
gsutil -m cp PGS.hg38.bcf{,.csi} gs://{google-bucket}/scores/

Define options to run the WDL to compute the polygenic scores related to mLOX:

{
  "score.sample_set_id": "hapmap370k",
  "score.region": "chrX",
  "score.tag": "AS",
  "score.ext_string": "mLOX",
  "score.summary_path": "gs://{google-bucket}/GRCh38/scores",
  "score.summary_files": ["PGS.hg38.bcf"],
  "score.summary_idxs": ["PGS.hg38.bcf.csi"],
  "score.samples_file": "gs://{google-bucket}/tsvs/hapmap370k.X_lines.lines",
  "score.ref_path": "gs://{google-bucket}/GRCh38",
  "score.impute_tsv_file": "gs://{google-bucket}/tsvs/hapmap370k.impute.tsv",
  "score.impute_data_path": "gs://{google-bucket}/imp_vcfs",
  "score.docker_repository": "us.gcr.io/mccarroll-mocha"
}

Define options to run the WDL to compute genome-wide polygenic scores for all samples including adjusted polygenic scores if a table hapmap370k.pcs.tsv with principal components is available:

{
  "score.sample_set_id": "hapmap370k",
  "score.tag": "DS",
  "score.summary_path": "gs://{google-bucket}/scores",
  "score.summary_files": ["PGS.hg38.bcf"],
  "score.summary_idxs": ["PGS.hg38.bcf.csi"],
  "score.covar_tsv_file": "gs://{google-bucket}/tsvs/hapmap370k.pcs.tsv",
  "score.ref_path": "gs://{google-bucket}/GRCh38",
  "score.impute_tsv_file": "gs://{google-bucket}/tsvs/hapmap370k.impute.tsv",
  "score.impute_data_path": "gs://{google-bucket}/imp_vcfs",
  "score.docker_repository": "us.gcr.io/mccarroll-mocha"
}

The impute_tsv_file input table should look like this:

batch_id	chr1_imp_vcf	chr1_imp_vcf_index	...	chrX_imp_vcf	chrX_imp_vcf_index
A	hapmap370k.A.chr1.as.bcf	hapmap370k.A.chr1.as.bcf.csi	...	hapmap370k.A.chrX.as.bcf	hapmap370k.A.chrX.as.bcf.csi
B	hapmap370k.B.chr1.as.bcf	hapmap370k.B.chr1.as.bcf.csi	...	hapmap370k.B.chrX.as.bcf	hapmap370k.B.chrX.as.bcf.csi

The output impute_tsv_file from the imputation pipeline will include these columns

Implementation Notes

The following softwares are used by the various steps of the pipelines:

software	description	license
BCFtools/idat2gtc	runs the GenCall algorithm to call genotypes	MIT
Affymetrix Power Tools	runs the Axiom algorithm to call genotypes	proprietary
BWA	maps DNA sequences against a reference genome	GPLv3 / MIT
HTSlib	a C library for accessing SAMs, CRAMs and VCFs	MIT / BSD
Samtools	manipulates SAMs and BAMs	MIT
BCFtools	manipulates VCFs and BCFs	MIT
BCFtools/gtc2vcf	converts Illumina microarray data to VCF	MIT
BCFtools/affy2vcf	converts Affymetrix microarray data to VCF	MIT
MoChA	calls mosaic chromosomal alterations	MIT
score	tools to work with GWAS-VCF summary statistics	MIT
SHAPEIT5	estimates haplotype phase from genotypes	MIT
IMPUTE5	imputes genotypes from phased haplotypes	proprietary
Beagle5	imputes genotypes from phased haplotypes	GPLv3
regenie	runs whole genome regression modelling	MIT
PLINK	runs association analyses	GPLv3
Cromwell	workflow management system	BSD

For users and developers that want to understand the logic and ideas behind the pipeline, here is a list of important aspects:

• The WDL is written according to the version development specification as it requires grouping by batch and sub batch through the collect_bt_key() function together with the as_map() and keys() functions
• To achieve parallelization both across batches and across genome windows, the transpose() function is used to move from one model to the other
• To minimize memory load on Cromwell, computed gender and call rate maps are passed to tasks vcf_qc and vcf_mocha as files rather than WDL maps, and similarly sample IDs are passed to tasks vcf_merge as files rather than WDL arrays
• As the current version of Cromwell does not accept optional outputs in tasks dispatched to Google Cloud, we have to touch optional output files in tasks cel2affy and vcf_split
• As the current version of Cromwell does not delocalize on Google Cloud lists of output files whose names are determined during runtime, we use the trick of delocalizing a Directory for tasks idat2gtc, cel2affy, vcf_scatter, and vcf_split
• Terra does not allow scatters with width larger than 35,000 (although Cromwell by default allows width up to 1,000,000), so to allow cohorts with more than 35,000 samples to be able to run on Terra we avoid scattering over each sample in the cohort
• As estimating the sizes of a large array of files is extremely time consuming in Google Cloud, causing tasks to spend a long time in PreparingJob state before starting to localize the files, for array of IDAT, GTC, CEL, and CHP files we estimate the size of the first file in an array and assume all the other files have similar sizes
• As the Terra job manager crashes if too much metadata is transferred between the workflow and the tasks, we try to transfer metadata to tasks through files wherever possible
• To avoid SIGPIPE error 141 when piping a stream to the UNIX command head, we use the || if [[ $? -eq 141 ]]; then true; else exit $?; fi trick
• To avoid return error 1 when grep returns no matches, we use the || if [[ $? -eq 1 ]]; then true; else exit $?; fi trick
• To avoid return error 2 when gunzip is used on a file localized as a hard link, we use gunzip --force
• Due to a numpy BUG in interp, the option period = np.inf needs to be added when interpolating chromosome coordinates
• Conversion of many GTC or CHP files to VCF can take a long time and be difficult to run on preemptible cloud computing, so making it hierarchical, while requiring more CPU cycles, can actually be cheaper. By default, up to 1,024 GTC or CHP files are converted at once
• When converting from GTC to VCF and from CHP to VCF, heavy random access to the reference genome is needed, so it is important that enough memory to cache the reference is provided or else the task can run excruciatingly slowly
• Genotyping using the Affymetrix Power Tools is best run on many samples at once. Affymetrix recommends, in their data analysis guide, to batch as large a batch size as computationally feasible, or up to 4800 samples. However, this can take up to 16 hours to execute, it is not parallelizable, and the genotyping software from Affymetrix is not multi-threaded. For this reason task cel2chp is set to run on non-preemptible computing by default
• Conversion to VCF for Affymetrix data can be done either from AGCC CHP files or from matrices of tab delimited genotype calls and confidences. We recommend the former as it can be more easily parallelizable by splitting the conversion into sub batches. When converting the latter, the whole batch will need to be converted into VCF in one single task. For this reason task txt2vcf is set to run on non-preemptible computing by default
• All tasks that output a VCF can, if requested, output either in compressed or uncompressed format. For VCFs with BAF and LRR intensities, we observed a modest ~25% space saving, most likely due to the high entropy in the intensity measurements. For VCF files with exclusively the GT format field, we observed around ~75% space saving
• Due to high sequence divergence between HLA class I and class II genes in the MHC (Norman et al. 2017), heterozygous variants in the MHC region show unusual degrees of allelic imbalance. To avoid false positive mosaic chromosomal alterations we mask the ~6Mbp segment between rs9468147 and rs9366822 on chromosome 6. We further mask a ~1Mbp KIR region between rs4806703 and rs34679212 on chromosome 19
• Due to residual correlation between the BAF and LRR, observed both for Illumina arrays (Oosting et al. 2007 and Staaf et al. 2008) and Affymetrix arrays (Mayrhofer et al. 2016), MoChA performs a BAF correction by regressing BAF values against LRR values. This improves detection of mosaic chromosomal alterations at low cell fractions. However, for this correction to be effective, batches need to include 100s of samples
• While Illumina internally computes BAF and LRR and stores these values in the GTC files, we instead recompute these values from normalized intensities and genotype cluster centers following the method first described by Illumina in Peiffer et al. 2006 but we do non truncate the BAF values between 0 and 1 like Illumina does. This allows to better estimate the residual correlation between the BAF and the LRR for homozygous calls
• SHAPEIT5 does not have an option to disable imputation of missing target genotypes. This is problematic as homozygous variants improperly imputed as heterozygous can be interpreted as huge BAF imbalances. To overcome this limitation of SHAPEIT5, we use BCFtools annotate to import the genotypes back in the target VCF using the --columns -FMT/GT option to replace only existing unphased genotype values without modifying missing genotypes
• SHAPEIT5 is used to phase genotypes across genome windows with overlapping ends. To avoid phase switch errors across windows which would negatively affect the ability to detect large mosaic chromosomal alterations at low cell fractions, we use BCFtools concat with the option --ligate to ligate phased VCFs by matching phase at phased haplotypes over overlapping windows
• Genotype data is transmitted across tasks in binary VCF format (BCF) rather than plain text VCF format as this is much more efficient to process especially for many samples. The relationship between BCF and VCF is similar to the one between BAM and SAM. The whole pipeline, both for Illumina and Affymetrix data, can completely avoid any intermediate conversion to non-binary format, providing significant time and cost savings (though notice that in txt mode the data provided by the user is not in binary format)
• Many large biobanks perform their genotyping across a span of several years. This causes sometimes to have to switch from one DNA microarray version to a newer version of the same DNA microarray (e.g. the Global Screening Array v1.0 vs. the Global Screening Array v2.0). While it is not possible to process samples on different arrays in the same batch, the batched design of the pipeline allows to include samples on separate arrays in the same workflow as long as they are assigned to different batches. One small drawback is that, when the whole cohort is phased across batches, only variants that are shared across all batches will be phased. Therefore we recommend to only process samples genotyped on the same array or on fairly similar arrays. As an example, we absolutely recommend to not process samples from the Global Screening Array and the Multi-Ethnic Global Array in the same workflow, although the user will not be prevented from doing so
• The pipeline is designed to be minimalistic and require the user to provide the minimal amount of information necessary to run

Dockerfiles

Dockerfile for BCFtools:

FROM debian:testing-slim
ARG DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
RUN apt-get -qqy update --fix-missing && \
    apt-get -qqy install --no-install-recommends \
                 wget \
                 bwa \
                 tabix \
                 samtools \
                 bcftools && \
    wget --no-check-certificate http://software.broadinstitute.org/software/gtc2vcf/gtc2vcf_1.20-20240927_amd64.deb && \
    apt-get -qqy install --no-install-recommends -f ./gtc2vcf_1.20-20240927_amd64.deb && \
    wget --no-check-certificate http://software.broadinstitute.org/software/mocha/bio-mocha_1.20-20240927_amd64.deb && \
    apt-get -qqy install --no-install-recommends -f ./bio-mocha_1.20-20240927_amd64.deb && \
    wget --no-check-certificate http://software.broadinstitute.org/software/score/score_1.20-20240927_amd64.deb && \
    apt-get -qqy install --no-install-recommends -f ./score_1.20-20240927_amd64.deb && \
    apt-get -qqy purge --auto-remove --option APT::AutoRemove::RecommendsImportant=false \
                 wget && \
    apt-get -qqy clean && \
    rm -rf gtc2vcf_1.20-20240927_amd64.deb \
           bio-mocha_1.20-20240927_amd64.deb \
           score_1.20-20240927_amd64.deb \
           /var/lib/apt/lists/*

Dockerfile for Affymetrix Power Tools:

FROM debian:testing-slim
ARG DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
RUN apt-get -qqy update --fix-missing && \
    apt-get -qqy install --no-install-recommends \
                 wget \
                 bcftools \
                 unzip && \
    wget --no-check-certificate http://software.broadinstitute.org/software/gtc2vcf/gtc2vcf_1.20-20240927_amd64.deb && \
    apt-get -qqy install --no-install-recommends -f ./gtc2vcf_1.20-20240927_amd64.deb && \
    wget --no-check-certificate http://downloads.thermofisher.com/APT/APT_2.12.0/apt_2.12.0_linux_64_x86_binaries.zip && \
    unzip -ojd /usr/local/bin apt_2.12.0_linux_64_x86_binaries.zip bin/apt-probeset-genotype && \
    chmod a+x /usr/local/bin/apt-probeset-genotype && \
    apt-get -qqy purge --auto-remove --option APT::AutoRemove::RecommendsImportant=false \
                 wget && \
    apt-get -qqy clean && \
    rm -rf gtc2vcf_1.20-20240927_amd64.deb \
           apt_2.12.0_linux_64_x86_binaries.zip \
           /var/lib/apt/lists/*

Dockerfile for ggplot2 and scripts to plot MoChA calls:

FROM debian:testing-slim
ARG DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
RUN apt-get -qqy update --fix-missing && \
    apt-get -qqy install --no-install-recommends \
                 wget \
                 tabix \
                 bcftools \
                 r-cran-optparse \
                 r-cran-ggplot2 \
                 r-cran-data.table \
                 r-cran-reshape2 && \
    wget --no-check-certificate http://software.broadinstitute.org/software/mocha/bio-mocha_1.20-20240927_amd64.deb && \
    apt-get -qqy install --no-install-recommends -f ./bio-mocha_1.20-20240927_amd64.deb && \
    wget --no-check-certificate http://software.broadinstitute.org/software/score/score_1.20-20240927_amd64.deb && \
    apt-get -qqy install --no-install-recommends -f ./score_1.20-20240927_amd64.deb && \
    apt-get -qqy purge --auto-remove --option APT::AutoRemove::RecommendsImportant=false \
                 wget && \
    apt-get -qqy clean && \
    rm -rf bio-mocha_1.20-20240927_amd64.deb \
           score_1.20-20240927_amd64.deb \
           /var/lib/apt/lists/*

Dockerfile for SHAPEIT5:

FROM debian:testing-slim
ARG DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
RUN apt-get -qqy update --fix-missing && \
    apt-get -qqy install --no-install-recommends \
                 wget \
                 bcftools && \
    wget --no-check-certificate http://github.com/odelaneau/shapeit5/releases/download/v5.1.1/phase_common_static && \
    wget --no-check-certificate http://github.com/odelaneau/shapeit5/releases/download/v5.1.1/phase_rare_static && \
    wget --no-check-certificate http://github.com/odelaneau/shapeit5/releases/download/v5.1.1/ligate_static && \
    chmod a+x phase_common_static phase_rare_static ligate_static && \
    mv phase_common_static /usr/local/bin/phase_common && \
    mv phase_rare_static /usr/local/bin/phase_rare && \
    mv ligate_static /usr/local/bin/ligate && \
    apt-get -qqy purge --auto-remove --option APT::AutoRemove::RecommendsImportant=false \
                 wget && \
    apt-get -qqy clean && \
    rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*

Dockerfile for IMPUTE5:

FROM debian:testing-slim
ARG DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
RUN apt-get -qqy update --fix-missing && \
    apt-get -qqy install --no-install-recommends \
                 wget \
                 bcftools \
                 unzip && \
    wget -O impute5_v1.2.0.zip --no-check-certificate http://www.dropbox.com/sh/mwnceyhir8yze2j/AABKBCgZsQqz8TlZGo7yXwx6a/impute5_v1.2.0.zip?dl=0 && \
    unzip -ojd /usr/bin impute5_v1.2.0.zip impute5_v1.2.0/impute5_v1.2.0_static impute5_v1.2.0/xcftools_static && \
    chmod a+x /usr/bin/impute5_v1.2.0_static /usr/bin/xcftools_static && \
    ln -s impute5_v1.2.0_static /usr/bin/impute5 && \
    ln -s xcftools_static /usr/bin/xcftools && \
    apt-get -qqy purge --auto-remove --option APT::AutoRemove::RecommendsImportant=false \
                 wget \
                 unzip && \
    apt-get -qqy clean && \
    rm -rf impute5_v1.2.0.zip \
           /var/lib/apt/lists/*

Dockerfile for Beagle:

FROM debian:testing-slim
ARG DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
RUN apt-get -qqy update --fix-missing && \
    apt-get -qqy install --no-install-recommends \
                 bcftools \
                 beagle && \
    apt-get -qqy clean && \
    rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*

Dockerfile for regenie:

FROM debian:testing-slim
ARG DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
RUN apt-get -qqy update --fix-missing && \
    apt-get -qqy install --no-install-recommends \
                 wget \
                 unzip \
                 libgomp1 \
                 tabix \
                 bcftools \
                 plink1.9 \
                 plink2 && \
    wget --no-check-certificate http://software.broadinstitute.org/software/score/score_1.20-20240927_amd64.deb && \
    apt-get -qqy install --no-install-recommends -f ./score_1.20-20240927_amd64.deb && \
    wget --no-check-certificate http://github.com/rgcgithub/regenie/releases/download/v3.8/regenie_v3.6.gz_x86_64_Linux_mkl.zip && \
    unzip -d /usr/local/bin regenie_v3.6.gz_x86_64_Linux_mkl.zip && \
    chmod a+x /usr/local/bin/regenie_v3.6.gz_x86_64_Linux_mkl && \
    ln -s regenie_v3.6.gz_x86_64_Linux_mkl /usr/local/bin/regenie && \
    apt-get -qqy purge --auto-remove --option APT::AutoRemove::RecommendsImportant=false \
                 wget \
                 unzip && \
    apt-get -qqy clean && \
    rm -rf score_1.20-20240927_amd64.deb \
           regenie_v3.6.gz_x86_64_Linux_mkl.zip \
           /var/lib/apt/lists/*

Acknowledgements

This work is supported by NIH grant R01 HG006855, NIH grant R01 MH104964, NIH grant R01MH123451, and the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research. This work was spurred from discussions within the COVID-19 host genetics and clonal hematopoiesis working groups: special thanks to Mark Daly, Andrea Ganna, Philip Awadalla, Pradeep Natarajan, Kelly Bolton, Alexander Bick and many others