Ensembl Genomes browser workshops

The Ensembl project has focused on vertebrate organisms for the past ten years. Since Jan 2009, a sister project has formed, Ensembl Genomes, extending analysis to invertebrates, protists, plants, fungi and bacteria.

We do now offer separate workshops on both Ensembl and Ensembl Genomes. Though the browsing is similar, specifics can vary. For example, the genes in most non-vertebrate genomes are determined using different rules than in vertebrate genomes.

So, if you are thinking of hosting a browser workshop and you know your audience will mainly consist of researchers working on non-vertebrate genomes, the Ensembl Genomes browser is the right choice for you!

For more detailed information on the Ensembl Genomes browser workshops please have a look here.

Power failure

We are currently experiencing a power failure which has taken the main Ensembl site offline. Our mirror site uswest.ensembl.org is still running so please use this until we have the main site back online.

Ensembl Developers Workshop at Genome Informatics 2010

Ensembl announces a workshop for developers that will take place at the Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Hinxton, UK. The workshop runs in the week of the Genome Informatics conference, from Monday 13 September until midday Wednesday 15 September 2010, and will cover the same content as in previous years.

Ensembl developers will present sessions on how to create your own core database, including the loading of a genome assembly into a database and the running of simple analyses using the Ensembl genebuild pipeline.

As this workshop is aimed at developers, we will be exploring the underlying code-base of the Ensembl Software System. The workshop comprises presentations around Ensembl as well as practical sessions. We would like to point out that this is not a 'learning how to program in Perl' workshop.

For the successful completion of the workshop exercises, participants will be expected to have comprehensive experience in PERL programming and a background in object oriented programming techniques. Familiarity with Perl, a Unix/Linux environment, databases and structured query languages (MySQL) are needed to follow the workshop and the programming examples. Knowledge of the Ensembl core API is essential. The workshop is suitable for people who have access to small- to large scale compute resources, and who plan to run genome-wide analyses on large-scale data sets.

The workshop will be given by:

• Bronwen Aken (Ensembl Genome Annotation team)
• Jan-Hinnerk Vogel (Ensembl Genome Annotation team)

Additional presenters will attend depending on the number of participants registering.

At the end of this course, attendees will

• have a good understanding of Ensembl's annotation pipeline
• have hands-on experience with loading a genome assembly
• have hands-on experience with the annotation pipeline

There is no registration fee to attend this course for non-industry participants, but we ask you to register in advance because the number of attendees is limited by the size of the training venue.

Please note that the workshop runs before the conference, so don't forget to arrange additional accommodation for the workshop days.

The aim of the Ensembl Developers Workshop is to promote the academic use of the Ensembl Analysis and Ensembl pipeline system used by the Ensembl Genome Annotation Group.

To register your interest to attend, please send an email to Bert Overduin (bert@ebi.ac.uk), together with a brief outline of the relevance of this workshop to your work and your details.

The registration deadline for this workshop is August, 15th. Notification of places will be as soon as possible.

We will circulate an agenda amongst participants in due time.

Ensembl Events in July 2010

As usually July is one of the quietest months of the year, but we still have a few workshops:

1-2 July: Ensembl module in the EBI Bioinformatics Roadshow at the Telethon Institute of Genetics and Medicine (TIGEM), Naples, Italy
13 July: Browser workshop at the University of Glasgow, Scotland

For details about these and other upcoming events, please have a look at the complete list of Ensembl training events.

SNPs in high LD

A new section has been added to the variation page in Ensembl 58 that allows you to find other variations in strong linkage disequilibrium with the SNP you are viewing.

Clicking on "Linked variations" from the menu on the left hand side of the variation page takes you to a view like this one for rs1333049. Linkage disequilibrium values are calcuated on the fly and presented in one table for each population.

The table shows both r² and D' values, along with the distance between the linked and current variations, any overlapping genes and any phenotypes associated with the linked variations. The table can be sorted by any of these columns by clicking on the column header (see previous post). The view is extensively configurable - clicking on Configure this page allows you to select populations to be displayed, change the distance over which linked variations are looked for, and filter the variations returned.

This view is currently only available for Ensembl Human, and is limited to variations with enough associated genotypes to calculate linkage disequilibrium values.

New Features to Aid Browsing

With the recent release of version 58, we are pleased to announce a few features designed to make genome browsing simpler. Have you noticed the search function in the individual tables? For example, in the Gene tab: "Variation Table", search for a variation ID.

Have a look at our sortable tables. In this example, we can sort by ID, Type, location, allele, source, or validation status. Use the arrows next to the column title to choose a new column to sort by. Searchable, and sortable, tables can also be found for orthologues, variations across individuals or strains, protein motifs and domains, and more.

If you are browsing a genomic region, you may have noticed that the Location tab: "Region in detail" view has a sliding zoom bar. Zoom out to view neighbouring genes and features, or zoom in to your favourite exon.

Zebrafish RNA-seq gene models

We have been developing a pipeline to build gene models using only RNA-seq data. For release 58 we have added a preliminary set of Zebrafish RNA-seq gene models with an intention to integrate this new source of evidence into a full genebuild soon.

Zebrafish transcriptome data from 9 tissues were used to build a set of genes and splice variants. For each loci we chose the variant with the highest read support to display, further details on the process are available here.
To display the genes, go to the Region in Detail, or Region Overview. Use the "Configure this page" button and select "RNASeq Genes" from the "Genes" menu. The "Supporting DNA Alignments" menu contains supporting exon and intron features from each of the nine tissues. Clicking on these features in Ensembl location pages shows a simple read count for the intron features and RPKM values for transcripts and exons, (reads per kilobase of model per million mapped reads, from Mortazavi Nature Methods 2008).

This is a first attempt at visualising tissue specific read depth and alternative splicing, which we hope to develop further in the future.

Ensembl Genomes Release 5

The Ensembl Genomes Project is pleased to announce release 5 of Ensembl Genomes.

The main highlights of this release are:

• Software migration to Ensembl 58

• Total of 6 new bacterial genomes for Escherichia/Shigella and Staphylococcus collections for Ensembl Bacteria; pairwise alignments added for all collections.

• 2 new genomes, Phaeodactylum tricornutum and Thalassiosira pseudonana, for Ensembl Protists; pairwise alignments added.

• A. fumigatus A1163 genome added to Ensembl Fungi.

• Pristionchus pacificus genome from Wormbase and updates to the Drosophilia variation database added to Ensembl Metazoa.

• Updates to the variation databases for A.thaliana, O.sativa japonica and V.vinifera in Ensembl Plants.

For further details regarding this release please visit:
http://ensemblgenomes.org/releases/release5_notes