While the analysis of gene fusions is crucial for understanding the genetic basis of cancer, the process of interpreting these mutations can be challenging. One important component of fusion interpretation is the identification of relevant publications. To aid researchers in the search for publications related to specific gene fusions, Felix Mitelman, and colleagues have created the Mitelman Database of Chromosome… Read more »
VarSeq 2.3.0 unleashed a whole new way to select, process, analyze, and report cancer variants through complete workflow automation, application of evaluation scripts, and enhanced annotation. Single nucleotide variants, copy number variants, structural variants, and genomic signatures could be added to a single patient evaluation, and Golden Helix CancerKB came packed with new report-ready interpretations to support them! Soon after,… Read more »
Explore the importance of negative findings in genomic medicine through the lens of VarSeq’s VSClinical AMP. When analyzing a somatic sample in VarSeq, users have the option to report on several types of biomarkers with VSClinical AMP. In addition to your usual mutational biomarkers such as small variants, your copy number variants, and structural variants, we support the analysis of… Read more »
Explore the evolving landscape of genomic analysis, transitioning from targeted gene panels to whole genome sequencing. A recent trend with our customers has been to expand their workflows from small panel sequencing analyses to larger whole exome and genome sequencing analyses. The decreasing cost of sequencing has made this a rather common request. Although more data allows for a greater… Read more »
Discover the power of VSClinical’s Interpretation Match Behavior options for managing the scope of somatic variants in cancer reporting, enabling clinical teams to make informed treatment decisions. Multiple interpretations can apply to a single biomarker or tumor type. In some circumstances, a clinical team may only want to report the most relevant and significant biomarker, treatment, diagnosis, or prognosis interpretations… Read more »
Discover how soft clip visualization can help you identify structural variants in your research and improve the accuracy of your findings. Soft clipping is a common technique in sequence alignment used to remove bases from the ends of reads that do not align with the reference sequence. Removing these bases typically improves alignment accuracy. However, when multiple reads are soft… Read more »
Unlocking the intricacies of fusion representations is crucial for understanding the impact of complex genetic rearrangements on gene function and disease development. In the most recent release of VarSeq, we added support for the import of complex rearrangements from VCF files, which typically encode rearrangements using breakend notation. This powerful notation is capable of describing the full spectrum of structural… Read more »
Discover the innovative clinical evidence search of the VSClinical AMP workflow, where patient biomarkers and tumor types are matched to the most relevant data from top sources like CIViC, DrugBank, and Clinical Trials. One of the core features of the VSClinical AMP interpretation workflow is the ability to search third-party data sources to find clinical evidence that matches the patient’s… Read more »
Unlocking the Potential of CRAM Files: The New VarSeq 2.3.0 Release for Enhanced Plotting, Coverage Analysis, and CNV Detection The CRAM (Compressed Reference-oriented Alignment Map) file format was conceived in 2011 as a more space-efficient way to store alignment data. It saves space over the previous standard BAM (Binary Alignment Map) by only storing the differences between each read and… Read more »
The last blog in this series covered streamlining variant analysis for large genetic cohorts, namely case-control studies, on a single-project basis. The reality when dealing with big data is that you often do not handle a high volume project all at once. Therefore, we will follow up on the topic of cohort analysis by discussing Golden Helix’s solution for streamlining… Read more »
First, thank you to everyone who joined us for our recent webcast, Handling a Variety of CNV Caller Inputs with VarSeq. Also, we would like to thank those that Tweeted #CNVsupport @GoldenHelix or emailed us (mmarks@goldenhelix.com) to throw in their questions. This was a successful trial run, and we would like to continue engaging with our users through these outlets…. Read more »
While the interpretation of germline variants generally focuses on the pathogenicity of a variant for a specific disease, the interpretation of somatic variants is centered around each variant’s impact on clinical care. As a result, clinical trials play an important role in assessing the clinical significance of somatic biomarkers, with the AMP Guidelines assigning a higher level of evidence to… Read more »
Tumor profiling via next generation sequencing (NGS) often reveals secondary germline variants that may constitute important incidental findings. In May 2021, the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics (ACMG) released an updated policy statement for reporting incidental findings in exome and genome sequencing data along with a corresponding list of genes. These recommendations state that laboratories should report pathogenic… Read more »
One of the many tricks of encoding so much functionality into so little space in eukaryotic genomes is the ability to produce multiple distinct mRNAs (transcripts) from a single gene. While one transcript is often the dominant one for a given tissue or cell type, there are, of course, exceptions in the messy reality of biology. It doesn’t take many… Read more »
A common feature request from Golden Helix customers is to curate and make available genome assemblies for different plant and animal species. These requests commonly come from SVS users as many research projects are being carried out, and having the genome assembly available for analysis is essential. That being said, Golden Helix has an SVS Tutorial available that walks users… Read more »
Thank you to those who attended the recent webcast, “Exome Analysis with VS-CNV & VSClinical: Updated Strategies & Expanded Capabilities”. For those who could not attend but wish to watch, here is a link to the recording. In this webcast, we covered the capabilities and updates that have been incorporated into VarSeq that enhance whole exome sequencing workflows. The new… Read more »
Orphanet is a public database available in VarSeq that aims to improve the current understanding and treatment options for patients affected by rare diseases. This resource was established in France in 1997 and has gradually grown to cover a consortium of over 40 countries in Europe. The primary goal of this database is to provide a universal nomenclature to classify… Read more »
Clinical testing labs produce reports as the end product of the NGS variant detection and interpretation workflow. Necessarily, the content, detail, and presentation of the report needs to be specialized to each clinical lab, and potentially each offered test. Our last blog post introduced the new Word-based report templates in VSClinical. In this blog post, we will introduce and explore… Read more »
In many cases, VarSeq users typically run single trio projects or perhaps an extended family project. Not only are all the inheritance model algorithms available in the VarSeq software to capture de novo, dominant, or recessively inherited variants but there are a number of quality control fields to help ensure the pedigree was set up properly. The last thing any… Read more »
Next-generation sequencing generates an immense amount of data which is then subject to a multi-step process to establish a validated bioinformatic pipeline. From processing raw sequence data to the detection of genetic mutations, establishing a validated and consistent bioinformatic pipeline makes a huge difference in the quality of patient care and accuracy of results. In this blog, we are focusing… Read more »
