Category

Genome Variant Analysis


Usage

java -jar VarScan.jar copynumber [normal_pileup] [tumor_pileup] [output] OPTIONS


Manual

OPTIONS:
--min-base-qual - Minimum base quality to count for coverage [20]
--min-map-qual - Minimum read mapping quality to count for coverage [20]
--min-coverage - Minimum coverage threshold for copynumber segments [20]
--min-segment-size - Minimum number of consecutive bases to report a segment [10]
--max-segment-size - Max size before a new segment is made [100]
--p-value - P-value threshold for significant copynumber change-point [0.01]
--data-ratio - The normal/tumor input data ratio for copynumber adjustment [1.0]

Note: The data ratio is intended to help you account for overall differences in the amount of sequencing coverage between normal and tumor, which might otherwise give the appearance of global copy number differences. If normal has more data than tumor, set this to something greater than 1. If tumor has more data than normal, adjust it to something below 1. A basic formula for data ratio might be something like ratio = normal_unique_bp / tumor_unique_bp where unique base pairs are computed as mapped_non_dup_reads * read_length.

OUTPUT
chrom				Chromosome name
chr_start			Region start position (1-based from the pileup)
chr_stop			Region stop position (1-based from the pileup)
num_positions		Size of the region in base pairs
normal_depth		Average normal sequence depth for the region
tumor_depth			Average tumor sequence depth for the region
log2_ratio			Log-base-2 ratio of: adjusted tumor depth over normal depth
gc_content			Estimated GC content of the region (0-100)

The raw regions reported by VarScan are delineated by drops in coverage or changes in the tumor/normal ratio, so there are many small, nearby regions with similar copy number. It is therefore recommended that raw VarScan copynumber output be processed with circular binary segmentation (CBS) or a similar algorithm, which will generate larger segments delineated by statistically significant change points. See the copy number calling section for details. 


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