Category

Gene Expression Analysis


Usage

rsem-calculate-expression [options] --alignments [--paired-end] input reference_name sample_name


Manual

Arguments

  • input: SAM/BAM/CRAM formatted input file. If "-" is specified for the filename, the input is instead assumed to come from standard input. RSEM requires all alignments of the same read group together. For paired-end reads, RSEM also requires the two mates of any alignment be adjacent. In addition, RSEM does not allow the SEQ and QUAL fields to be empty. See Description section for how to make input file obey RSEM's requirements.
  • reference_name: The name of the reference used. The user must have run rsem-prepare-reference with this reference_name before running this program.
  • sample_name: The name of the sample analyzed. All output files are prefixed by this name (e.g., sample_name.genes.results)

Options

Basic Options
  • --paired-end:: Input reads are paired-end reads. (Default: off)
  • --no-qualities: Input reads do not contain quality scores. (Default: off)
  • --strand-specific: The RNA-Seq protocol used to generate the reads is strand specific, i.e., all (upstream) reads are derived from the forward strand. This option is equivalent to --forward-prob=1.0.: With this option set, if RSEM runs the Bowtie/Bowtie 2 aligner, the --norc: Bowtie/Bowtie 2 option will be used, which disables alignment to the reverse strand of transcripts. (Default: off)
  • -p, --num-threads: Number of threads to use. Both Bowtie/Bowtie2, expression estimation and samtools sort will use this many threads. (Default: 1)
  • --alignments: Input file contains alignments in SAM/BAM/CRAM format. The exact file format will be determined automatically. Starting from version 1.2.27, this option replaces the old options --sam and --bam. (Default: off)
  • --fai: RSEM reads header information from input by default. If this option is on, header information is read from the specified file. For the format of the file, please see SAM official website. (Default: off)
  • --bowtie2: Use Bowtie 2 instead of Bowtie to align reads. Since currently RSEM does not handle indel, local and discordant alignments, the Bowtie2 parameters are set in a way to avoid those alignments. In particular, we use options --sensitive: --dpad: 0 --gbar: 99999999 --mp: 1,1 --np: 1 --score-min: L,0,-0.1 by default. The last parameter of --score-min -0.1, is the negative of maximum mismatch rate. This rate can be set by option --bowtie2-mismatch-rate. If reads are paired-end, we additionally use options --no-mixed and --no-discordant. (Default: off)
  • --star: Use STAR to align reads. Alignment parameters are from ENCODE3's STAR-RSEM pipeline. To save computational time and memory resources, STAR's Output BAM file is unsorted. It is stored in RSEM's temporary directory with name as 'sample_name.bam'. Each STAR job will have its own private copy of the genome in memory. (Default: off)
  • --append-names: If gene_name/transcript_name is available, append it to the end of gene_id/transcript_id (separated by '_') in files 'sample_name.isoforms.results' and 'sample_name.genes.results'. (Default: off)
  • --seed: Set the seed for the random number generators used in calculating posterior mean estimates and credibility intervals. The seed must be a non-negative 32 bit integer. (Default: off)
  • --single-cell-prior: By default, RSEM uses Dirichlet(1) as the prior to calculate posterior mean estimates and credibility intervals. However, much less genes are expressed in single cell RNA-Seq data. Thus, if you want to compute posterior mean estimates and/or credibility intervals and you have single-cell RNA-Seq data, you are recommended to turn on this option. Then RSEM will use Dirichlet(0.1) as the prior which encourage the sparsity of the expression levels. (Default: off)
  • --calc-pme: Run RSEM's collapsed Gibbs sampler to calculate posterior mean estimates. (Default: off)
  • --calc-ci: Calculate 95% credibility intervals and posterior mean estimates. The credibility level can be changed by setting --ci-credibility-level: (Default: off)
  • -q, --quiet: Suppress the output of logging information. (Default: off)
  • -h, --help: Show help information.
  • --version: Show version information.
Output options
  • --sort-bam-by-read-name: Sort BAM file aligned under transcript coordidate by read name. Setting this option on will produce deterministic maximum likelihood estimations from independent runs. Note that sorting will take long time and lots of memory. (Default: off)
  • --no-bam-output: Do not output any BAM file. (Default: off)
  • --sampling-for-bam: When RSEM generates a BAM file, instead of outputting all alignments a read has with their posterior probabilities, one alignment is sampled according to the posterior probabilities. The sampling procedure includes the alignment to the "noise" transcript, which does not appear in the BAM file. Only the sampled alignment has a weight of 1. All other alignments have weight 0. If the "noise" transcript is sampled, all alignments appeared in the BAM file should have weight 0. (Default: off)
  • --output-genome-bam: Generate a BAM file, 'sample_name.genome.bam', with alignments mapped to genomic coordinates and annotated with their posterior probabilities. In addition, RSEM will call samtools (included in RSEM package) to sort and index the bam file. 'sample_name.genome.sorted.bam' and 'sample_name.genome.sorted.bam.bai' will be generated. (Default: off)
  • --sort-bam-by-coordinate: Sort RSEM generated transcript and genome BAM files by coordinates and build associated indices. (Default: off)
  • --sort-bam-memory-per-thread: Set the maximum memory per thread that can be used by 'samtools sort'. represents the memory and accepts suffices 'K/M/G'. RSEM will pass to the '-m' option of 'samtools sort'. Note that the default used here is different from the default used by samtools. (Default: 1G)
Aligner options
  • --seed-length int: Seed length used by the read aligner. Providing the correct value is important for RSEM. If RSEM runs Bowtie, it uses this value for Bowtie's seed length parameter. Any read with its or at least one of its mates' (for paired-end reads) length less than this value will be ignored. If the references are not added poly(A) tails, the minimum allowed value is 5, otherwise, the minimum allowed value is 25. Note that this script will only check if the value >= 5 and give a warning message if the value < 25 but >= 5. (Default: 25)
  • --phred33-quals: Input quality scores are encoded as Phred+33. (Default: on)
  • --phred64-quals: Input quality scores are encoded as Phred+64 (default for GA Pipeline ver. >= 1.3). (Default: off)
  • --solexa-quals: Input quality scores are solexa encoded (from GA Pipeline ver. < 1.3). (Default: off)
  • --bowtie-path path: The path to the Bowtie executables. (Default: the path to the Bowtie executables is assumed to be in the user's PATH environment variable)
  • --bowtie-n int: (Bowtie parameter) max # of mismatches in the seed. (Range: 0-3, Default: 2)
  • --bowtie-e int :(Bowtie parameter) max sum of mismatch quality scores across the alignment. (Default: 99999999)
  • --bowtie-m int: (Bowtie parameter) suppress all alignments for a read if > int valid alignments exist. (Default: 200)
  • --bowtie-chunkmbs int: (Bowtie parameter) memory allocated for best first alignment calculation (Default: 0 - use Bowtie's default)
  • --bowtie2-path path: (Bowtie 2 parameter) The path to the Bowtie 2 executables. (Default: the path to the Bowtie 2 executables is assumed to be in the user's PATH environment variable)
  • --bowtie2-mismatch-rate double: (Bowtie 2 parameter) The maximum mismatch rate allowed. (Default: 0.1)
  • --bowtie2-k int: (Bowtie 2 parameter) Find up to int alignments per read. (Default: 200)
  • --bowtie2-sensitivity-level string: (Bowtie 2 parameter) Set Bowtie 2's preset options in --end-to-end: mode. This option controls how hard Bowtie 2 tries to find alignments. string must be one of "very_fast", "fast", "sensitive" and "very_sensitive". The four candidates correspond to Bowtie 2's --very-fast, --fast, --sensitive and --very-sensitive options. (Default: sensitive - use Bowtie 2's default)
  • --star-path path: The path to STAR's executable. (Default: the path to STAR executable is assumed to be in user's PATH environment variable)
  • --star-gzipped-read-file: (STAR parameter) Input read file(s) is compressed by gzip. (Default: off)
  • --star-bzipped-read-file: (STAR parameter) Input read file(s) is compressed by bzip2. (Default: off)
  • --star-output-genome-bam: (STAR parameter) Save the BAM file from STAR alignment under genomic coordinate to 'sample_name.STAR.genome.bam'. This file is NOT sorted by genomic coordinate. In this file, according to STAR's manual, 'paired ends of an alignment are always adjacent, and multiple alignments of a read are adjacent as well'. (Default: off)
Advanced options
  • --tag string: The name of the optional field used in the SAM input for identifying a read with too many valid alignments. The field should have the format :i:, where a bigger than 0 indicates a read with too many alignments. (Default: "")
  • --forward-prob double: Probability of generating a read from the forward strand of a transcript. Set to 1 for a strand-specific protocol where all (upstream) reads are derived from the forward strand, 0 for a strand-specific protocol where all (upstream) read are derived from the reverse strand, or 0.5 for a non-strand-specific protocol. (Default: 0.5)
  • --fragment-length-min int: Minimum read/insert length allowed. This is also the value for the Bowtie/Bowtie2 -I option. (Default: 1)
  • --fragment-length-max int: Maximum read/insert length allowed. This is also the value for the Bowtie/Bowtie 2 -X option. (Default: 1000)
  • --fragment-length-mean double: (single-end data only) The mean of the fragment length distribution, which is assumed to be a Gaussian. (Default: -1, which disables use of the fragment length distribution)
  • --fragment-length-sd double: (single-end data only) The standard deviation of the fragment length distribution, which is assumed to be a Gaussian. (Default: 0, which assumes that all fragments are of the same length, given by the rounded value of --fragment-length-mean)
  • --estimate-rspd: Set this option if you want to estimate the read start position distribution (RSPD) from data. Otherwise, RSEM will use a uniform RSPD. (Default: off)
  • --num-rspd-bins int: Number of bins in the RSPD. Only relevant when --estimate-rspd is specified. Use of the default setting is recommended. (Default: 20)
  • --gibbs-burnin int: The number of burn-in rounds for RSEM's Gibbs sampler. Each round passes over the entire data set once. If RSEM can use multiple threads, multiple Gibbs samplers will start at the same time and all samplers share the same burn-in number. (Default: 200)
  • --gibbs-number-of-samples int: The total number of count vectors RSEM will collect from its Gibbs samplers. (Default: 1000)
  • --gibbs-sampling-gap int: The number of rounds between two succinct count vectors RSEM collects. If the count vector after round N is collected, the count vector after round N + int will also be collected. (Default: 1)
  • --ci-credibility-level double: The credibility level for credibility intervals. (Default: 0.95)
  • --ci-memory int: Maximum size (in memory, MB) of the auxiliary buffer used for computing credibility intervals (CI). (Default: 1024)
  • --ci-number-of-samples-per-count-vector int: The number of read generating probability vectors sampled per sampled count vector. The crebility intervals are calculated by first sampling P(C | D) and then sampling P(Theta | C) for each sampled count vector. This option controls how many Theta vectors are sampled per sampled count vector. (Default: 50)
  • --keep-intermediate-files: Keep temporary files generated by RSEM. RSEM creates a temporary directory, 'sample_name.temp', into which it puts all intermediate output files. If this directory already exists, RSEM overwrites all files generated by previous RSEM runs inside of it. By default, after RSEM finishes, the temporary directory is deleted. Set this option to prevent the deletion of this directory and the intermediate files inside of it. (Default: off)
  • --temporary-folder string: Set where to put the temporary files generated by RSEM. If the folder specified does not exist, RSEM will try to create it. (Default: sample_name.temp)
  • --time: Output time consumed by each step of RSEM to 'sample_name.time'. (Default: off)

Protocols using this tool

ENCODE RNA-seq (paired-end)

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