nf-core / nf-core/magmap

Eukaryotic taxonomy/completeness metadata sources (GTDB/CheckM/GTDB-Tk equivalents)

Open
#241 0 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

Nobody has claimed this yet.

Dominant language
Nextflow
Stars
12
Forks
6
Avg merge
1d 7h
Merged PRs (30d)
8

Description

Description of feature

magmap's species_preference logic (and general genome metadata reporting) depends on GTDB metadata (taxonomy + completeness/contamination for remote genomes), GTDB-Tk (taxonomy classification for local genomes), and CheckM/CheckM2 (completeness/contamination for local genomes) -- all prokaryote-specific. If magmap gains eukaryotic transcriptome support (#239), the equivalent metadata sources for eukaryotes need identifying, since GTDB itself doesn't cover eukaryotes at all.

What's available (checked directly, not assumed)

Taxonomy: MMETSP entries are mostly pre-identified, cultured strains -- taxonomy comes as metadata from culture collection records, not something needing a GTDB-Tk-style algorithmic classifier for the reference side. Where a curated eukaryotic taxonomy backbone would matter is classifying an unidentified sequence (e.g. a user's own uncultured eukaryotic MAG/transcriptome) -- PR2 (Protist Ribosomal Reference database) is the standard for marine microbial eukaryotes; MarFERReT itself uses PR2 taxonomy IDs alongside NCBI taxonomy.

Completeness/contamination (the CheckM analog): EukCC is explicitly built as CheckM's eukaryotic equivalent -- same completeness/contamination framing, works on eukaryotic genome/MAG assemblies, and reportedly outperforms BUSCO specifically on contamination estimation. Separately, and specific to the MMETSP path: the 2019 re-assembly paper already published per-sample BUSCO completeness metrics as supplementary data (MMETSP_all_evaluation_matrix.csv) -- potentially reusable directly as ready-made quality metadata for MMETSP entries without re-running anything.

Open questions

  • Does EukCC work sensibly on transcriptome assemblies (not just genome assemblies), given MMETSP entries are transcripts not genomes? CheckM's own genome-focus suggests EukCC may share that assumption -- worth checking before assuming direct applicability to transcript-level references.
  • Would species_preference-equivalent logic for eukaryotic entries reuse the existing local/completeness/gtdb preference modes, or need its own scheme given the different metadata shape (MMETSP's own BUSCO/Transrate scores vs. CheckM/GTDB-style completeness+contamination)?

Related: #239 (MMETSP support, which this metadata question feeds into), #240 (eukaryotic gene calling).

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by reviewing the MMETSP support proposal in issue #239 and the cited EukCC, PR2, and MMETSP_all_evaluation_matrix.csv sources. Check whether EukCC applies to transcriptome assemblies, then compare available taxonomy and quality metadata with the existing species_preference modes. Done means documenting suitable eukaryotic sources and recommending how their metadata should be represented.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Domain
bioinformatics
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Quiet
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
30/100

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.