AlexsLemonade / AlexsLemonade/refinebio

Randomize reads before quantification with Salmon

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question salmon
Dominant language
Python
Stars
135
Forks
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Description

### Context

Salmon assumes that the reads you give it are in a random order -- see the first **Note** [here](https://salmon.readthedocs.io/en/latest/salmon.html#using-salmon) in the Salmon docs.

### Problem or idea

Because we won't know if the `fastq.gz` files from SRA have been ordered in some way without checking, we might want to shuffle the reads before giving it to `salmon quant`. It is not clear to me how frequently these files will be in a non-random order (if ever).

### Solution or next step

Based on my understanding of #157 (and by extension, how things are currently implemented), we have to unzip the `fastq.gz` file to determine the read lengths. That might be the time to shuffle the reads, but this needs a dev team perspective. Also, as noted above, I don't know how many samples this will effect.

Contributor guide

No contributing guide indexed for this repository

Research direction

Review issue #157 and the Salmon documentation note about read ordering first. Trace where fastq.gz files are prepared and passed to salmon quant, then determine whether shuffling belongs in that path; done means the team has an agreed implementation point and verified behavior for affected samples.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Domain
bioinformatics
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
25/100

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