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# What VQSR training sets / arguments should I use for my specific project?

Posts: 121GATK Developer mod
edited April 15 in FAQs

This document describes the resource datasets and arguments to use in the two steps of VQSR (i.e. the successive application of VariantRecalibrator and ApplyRecalibration), based on our work with human genomes.

Note that VQSR must be run twice in succession in order to build a separate error model for SNPs and INDELs (see the VQSR documentation for more details).

These recommendations are valid for use with calls generated by both the UnifiedGenotyper and HaplotypeCaller. In the past we made a distinction in how we processed the calls from these two callers, but now we treat them the same way. These recommendations will probably not work properly on calls generated by other (non-GATK) callers.

### Resource datasets

The human genome training, truth and known resource datasets mentioned in this document are all available from our resource bundle.

If you are working with non-human genomes, you will need to find or generate at least truth and training resource datasets with properties corresponding to those described below. To generate your own resource set, one idea is to first do an initial round of SNP calling and only use those SNPs which have the highest quality scores. These sites which have the most confidence are probably real and could be used as truth data to help disambiguate the rest of the variants in the call set. Another idea is to try using several SNP callers in addition to the UnifiedGenotyper or HaplotypeCaller, and use those sites which are concordant between the different methods as truth data. In either case, you'll need to assign your set a prior likelihood that reflects your confidence in how reliable it is as a truth set. We recommend Q10 as a starting value, which you can then experiment with to find the most appropriate value empirically. There are many possible avenues of research here. Hopefully the model reporting plots that are generated by the recalibration tools will help facilitate this experimentation.

#### Resources for SNPs

• True sites training resource: HapMap
This resource is a SNP call set that has been validated to a very high degree of confidence. The program will consider that the variants in this resource are representative of true sites (truth=true), and will use them to train the recalibration model (training=true). We will also use these sites later on to choose a threshold for filtering variants based on sensitivity to truth sites. The prior likelihood we assign to these variants is Q15 (96.84%).

• True sites training resource: Omni
This resource is a set of polymorphic SNP sites produced by the Omni geno- typing array. The program will consider that the variants in this resource are representative of true sites (truth=true), and will use them to train the recalibration model (training=true). The prior likelihood we assign to these variants is Q12 (93.69%).

• Non-true sites training resource: 1000G
This resource is a set of high-confidence SNP sites produced by the 1000 Genomes Project. The program will consider that the variants in this re- source may contain true variants as well as false positives (truth=false), and will use them to train the recalibration model (training=true). The prior likelihood we assign to these variants is Q10 (%). 17

• Known sites resource, not used in training: dbSNP
This resource is a call set that has not been validated to a high degree of confidence (truth=false). The program will not use the variants in this resource to train the recalibration model (training=false). However, the program will use these to stratify output metrics such as Ti/Tv ratio by whether variants are present in dbsnp or not (known=true). The prior likelihood we assign to these variants is Q2 (36.90%).

#### Resources for Indels

• Known and true sites training resource: Mills
This resource is an Indel call set that has been validated to a high degree of confidence. The program will consider that the variants in this resource are representative of true sites (truth=true), and will use them to train the recalibration model (training=true). The prior likelihood we assign to these variants is Q12 (93.69%).

### VariantRecalibrator

The variant quality score recalibrator builds an adaptive error model using known variant sites and then applies this model to estimate the probability that each variant is a true genetic variant or a machine artifact. One major improvement from previous recommended protocols is that hand filters do not need to be applied at any point in the process now. All filtering criteria are learned from the data itself.

#### Common, base command line

java -Xmx4g -jar GenomeAnalysisTK.jar \
-T VariantRecalibrator \
-R path/to/reference/human_g1k_v37.fasta \
-input raw.input.vcf \
-recalFile path/to/output.recal \
-tranchesFile path/to/output.tranches \
-nt 4 \
[SPECIFY TRUTH AND TRAINING SETS] \
[SPECIFY WHICH ANNOTATIONS TO USE IN MODELING] \
[SPECIFY WHICH CLASS OF VARIATION TO MODEL] \


#### SNP specific recommendations

For SNPs we use both HapMap v3.3 and the Omni chip array from the 1000 Genomes Project as training data. In addition we take the highest confidence SNPs from the project's callset. These datasets are available in the GATK resource bundle.

Arguments for VariantRecalibrator command:

   -resource:hapmap,known=false,training=true,truth=true,prior=15.0 hapmap_3.3.b37.sites.vcf \
-resource:omni,known=false,training=true,truth=true,prior=12.0 1000G_omni2.5.b37.sites.vcf \
-resource:1000G,known=false,training=true,truth=false,prior=10.0 1000G_phase1.snps.high_confidence.vcf \
-resource:dbsnp,known=true,training=false,truth=false,prior=2.0 dbsnp.b37.vcf \
-an QD -an MQ -an MQRankSum -an ReadPosRankSum -an FS -an DP -an InbreedingCoeff \
-mode SNP \


Please note that these recommendations are formulated for whole-genome datasets. For exomes, we do not recommend using DP for variant recalibration (see below for details of why).

Note also that, for the above to work, the input vcf needs to be annotated with the corresponding values (QD, FS, DP, etc.). If any of these values are somehow missing, then VariantAnnotator needs to be run first so that VariantRecalibration can run properly.

Also, using the provided sites-only truth data files is important here as parsing the genotypes for VCF files with many samples increases the runtime of the tool significantly.

You may notice that these recommendations no longer include the --numBadVariants argument. That is because we have removed this argument from the tool, as the VariantRecalibrator now determines the number of variants to use for modeling "bad" variants internally based on the data.

Some of these annotations might not be the best for your particular dataset.

Depth of coverage (the DP annotation invoked by Coverage) should not be used when working with exome datasets since there is extreme variation in the depth to which targets are captured! In whole genome experiments this variation is indicative of error but that is not the case in capture experiments.

Additionally, the UnifiedGenotyper produces a statistic called the HaplotypeScore which should be used for SNPs. This statistic isn't necessary for the HaplotypeCaller because that mathematics is already built into the likelihood function itself when calling full haplotypes.

The InbreedingCoeff is a population level statistic that requires at least 10 samples in order to be computed. For projects with fewer samples please omit this annotation from the command line.

##### Important notes for exome capture experiments

In our testing we've found that in order to achieve the best exome results one needs to use an exome SNP and/or indel callset with at least 30 samples. For users with experiments containing fewer exome samples there are several options to explore:

• Add additional samples for variant calling, either by sequencing additional samples or using publicly available exome bams from the 1000 Genomes Project (this option is used by the Broad exome production pipeline)
• Use the VQSR with the smaller variant callset but experiment with the precise argument settings (try adding --maxGaussians 4 to your command line, for example)

#### Indel specific recommendations

When modeling indels with the VQSR we use a training dataset that was created at the Broad by strictly curating the (Mills, Devine, Genome Research, 2011) dataset as as well as adding in very high confidence indels from the 1000 Genomes Project. This dataset is available in the GATK resource bundle.

Arguments for VariantRecalibrator:

   --maxGaussians 4 \
-resource:mills,known=false,training=true,truth=true,prior=12.0 Mills_and_1000G_gold_standard.indels.b37.sites.vcf \
-resource:dbsnp,known=true,training=false,truth=false,prior=2.0 dbsnp.b37.vcf \
-an QD -an DP -an FS -an ReadPosRankSum -an MQRankSum -an InbreedingCoeff \
-mode INDEL \


Note that indels use a different set of annotations than SNPs. Most annotations related to mapping quality have been removed since there is a conflation with the length of an indel in a read and the degradation in mapping quality that is assigned to the read by the aligner. This covariation is not necessarily indicative of being an error in the same way that it is for SNPs.

You may notice that these recommendations no longer include the --numBadVariants argument. That is because we have removed this argument from the tool, as the VariantRecalibrator now determines the number of variants to use for modeling "bad" variants internally based on the data.

### ApplyRecalibration

The power of the VQSR is that it assigns a calibrated probability to every putative mutation in the callset. The user is then able to decide at what point on the theoretical ROC curve their project wants to live. Some projects, for example, are interested in finding every possible mutation and can tolerate a higher false positive rate. On the other hand, some projects want to generate a ranked list of mutations that they are very certain are real and well supported by the underlying data. The VQSR provides the necessary statistical machinery to effectively apply this sensitivity/specificity tradeoff.

#### Common, base command line


java -Xmx3g -jar GenomeAnalysisTK.jar \
-T ApplyRecalibration \
-R reference/human_g1k_v37.fasta \
-input raw.input.vcf \
-tranchesFile path/to/input.tranches \
-recalFile path/to/input.recal \
-o path/to/output.recalibrated.filtered.vcf \
[SPECIFY THE DESIRED LEVEL OF SENSITIVITY TO TRUTH SITES] \
[SPECIFY WHICH CLASS OF VARIATION WAS MODELED] \


#### SNP specific recommendations

For SNPs we used HapMap 3.3 and the Omni 2.5M chip as our truth set. We typically seek to achieve 99.5% sensitivity to the accessible truth sites, but this is by no means universally applicable: you will need to experiment to find out what tranche cutoff is right for your data. Generally speaking, projects involving a higher degree of diversity in terms of world populations can expect to achieve a higher truth sensitivity than projects with a smaller scope.

   --ts_filter_level 99.5 \
-mode SNP \


#### Indel specific recommendations

For indels we use the Mills / 1000 Genomes indel truth set described above. We typically seek to achieve 99.0% sensitivity to the accessible truth sites, but this is by no means universally applicable: you will need to experiment to find out what tranche cutoff is right for your data. Generally speaking, projects involving a higher degree of diversity in terms of world populations can expect to achieve a higher truth sensitivity than projects with a smaller scope.

   --ts_filter_level 99.0 \
-mode INDEL \

Post edited by rpoplin on
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