Package 'UCSC.utils'

Title: Low-level utilities to retrieve data from the UCSC Genome Browser
Description: A set of low-level utilities to retrieve data from the UCSC Genome Browser. Most functions in the package access the data via the UCSC REST API but some of them query the UCSC MySQL server directly. Note that the primary purpose of the package is to support higher-level functionalities implemented in downstream packages like GenomeInfoDb or txdbmaker.
Authors: Hervé Pagès [aut, cre]
Maintainer: Hervé Pagès <[email protected]>
License: Artistic-2.0
Version: 1.3.0
Built: 2024-11-30 05:34:41 UTC
Source: https://github.com/bioc/UCSC.utils

Help Index


Fetch UCSC track data

Description

Fetch the track data for a given UCSC genome/track.

Usage

fetch_UCSC_track_data(genome, primary_table, api.url=UCSC.api.url())

Arguments

genome

A single string specifying the name of a UCSC genome e.g. "hs1", "danRer11", or "wuhCor1". See ?list_UCSC_genomes for how to get the list of valid UCSC genome names.

primary_table

A single string specifying the name of the primary table associated with the track from which to fetch the data. See ?list_UCSC_tracks for how to get the list of tracks and associated primary tables for a given UCSC genome.

api.url

The URL of the UCSC API. By default, the URL returned by UCSC.api.url() is used. Note that what UCSC.api.url() returns is controlled by a global option. See ?UCSC.api.url for more information.

Value

A data frame.

See Also

  • list_UCSC_genomes to get the list of UCSC genomes.

  • list_UCSC_tracks to get the list of tracks and associated primary tables for a given UCSC genome.

  • UCSC_dbselect for a more efficient and more flexible way to retrieve data directly from the UCSC MariaDB server.

Examples

gorGor6_gap_data <- fetch_UCSC_track_data("gorGor6", "gap")
head(gorGor6_gap_data)

## --- Comparison with UCSC_dbselect() ---

gorGor6_gap_data2 <- UCSC_dbselect("gorGor6", "gap")

## Easy sanity checks.
stopifnot(
  identical(dim(gorGor6_gap_data), dim(gorGor6_gap_data2)),
  identical(colnames(gorGor6_gap_data), colnames(gorGor6_gap_data2))
)

## But the two data frames are not identical:
identical(gorGor6_gap_data, gorGor6_gap_data2)  # FALSE!

## However, they have the same content. Ony reason they're not
## identical is because their rows are not in the same order.
## Let's reorder the rows in the two data frames by genomic location,
## that is, first by chromosome, then by chromStart, and finally
## by chromEnd:
sort_rows <- function(gap_data) {
  oo <- order(gap_data$chrom, gap_data$chromStart, gap_data$chromEnd)
  gap_data <- gap_data[oo, ]
  rownames(gap_data) <- NULL
  gap_data
}

gorGor6_gap_data <- sort_rows(gorGor6_gap_data)
gorGor6_gap_data2 <- sort_rows(gorGor6_gap_data2)

## Now the two data frames are identical:
stopifnot(identical(gorGor6_gap_data, gorGor6_gap_data2))

List UCSC chromosome sizes

Description

Get the chromosome sizes of a given UCSC genome.

Usage

get_UCSC_chrom_sizes(genome, api.url=UCSC.api.url(), recache=FALSE)

Arguments

genome

A single string specifying the name of a UCSC genome e.g. "hs1", "mm39", or "sacCer3". See ?list_UCSC_genomes for how to get the list of valid UCSC genome names.

api.url

The URL of the UCSC API. By default, the URL returned by UCSC.api.url() is used. Note that what UCSC.api.url() returns is controlled by a global option. See ?UCSC.api.url for more information.

recache

get_UCSC_chrom_sizes() uses a cache mechanism so the information retrieved for a given genome only gets downloaded once during the current R session (note that the caching is done in memory so cached information does NOT persist across sessions). Setting recache to TRUE forces a new download (and recaching) of the chromosome sizes for the specified genome.

Value

A named numeric vector. The names on the vector are the UCSC chromosomes/sequences. The vector values are the corresponding lengths.

Note that the vector is not sorted in any particular order. In particular there's not guarantee that the chromosomes will precede the scaffolds.

See Also

  • list_UCSC_genomes to get the list of UCSC genomes.

  • The Seqinfo constructor function in the GenomeInfoDb package for an alternate (higher level) way of retrieving the chromosome information of a given NCBI assembly or UCSC genome.

  • list_UCSC_tracks to get the list of tracks and associated primary tables for a given UCSC genome.

  • UCSC.api.url for how to use an alternative UCSC API URL by default.

Examples

get_UCSC_chrom_sizes("ce2")

get_UCSC_chrom_sizes("hg38")

List UCSC genomes

Description

Get the list of UCSC genomes.

Usage

list_UCSC_genomes(organism=NA, api.url=UCSC.api.url(), recache=FALSE)

get_organism_for_UCSC_genome(genome, api.url=UCSC.api.url(), recache=FALSE)

Arguments

organism

By default all UCSC genomes are returned (in a data frame). When organism is specified, list_UCSC_genomes() will only return the rows associated with the specified organism. organism must be supplied as a single string that will be used to perform a search (with grep()) on the organism and common_name columns of the data frame to return. The search is case-insensitive.

api.url

The URL of the UCSC API. By default, the URL returned by UCSC.api.url() is used. Note that what UCSC.api.url() returns is controlled by a global option. See ?UCSC.api.url for more information.

recache

list_UCSC_genomes() uses a cache mechanism so the list of genomes only gets downloaded once during the current R session (note that the caching is done in memory so cached information does NOT persist across sessions). Setting recache to TRUE forces a new download (and recaching) of the list of genomes.

In the case of get_organism_for_UCSC_genome(), the supplied recache value is just passed down to the internal call to list_UCSC_genomes().

genome

A character vector of valid UCSC genomes e.g. "hg38", "mm39", or "sacCer3".

Value

For list_UCSC_genomes: A data frame with 1 row per genome and 5 columns: organism, genome, common_name, tax_id, description.

For get_organism_for_UCSC_genome: A named character of the same length as the input containing the scientific names of the organisms associated with the supplied UCSC genomes.

See Also

Examples

list_UCSC_genomes("human")

list_UCSC_genomes("pacos")

get_organism_for_UCSC_genome(c("ce11", "xenTro10", "mpxvRivers"))

List UCSC tracks and associated primary tables

Description

Get the list of tracks and associated primary tables for a given UCSC genome.

Usage

list_UCSC_tracks(genome, group=NULL,
                 api.url=UCSC.api.url(), recache=FALSE)

Arguments

genome

A single string specifying the name of a UCSC genome e.g. "hg38", "mm39", or "sacCer3". See ?list_UCSC_genomes for how to get the list of valid UCSC genome names.

group

NULL or a single string specifying the group of tracks to return. By default, all tracks are returned. Passing group=NA is accepted and will return only rows associated with tracks that don't belong to any group.

api.url

The URL of the UCSC API. By default, the URL returned by UCSC.api.url() is used. Note that what UCSC.api.url() returns is controlled by a global option. See ?UCSC.api.url for more information.

recache

list_UCSC_tracks() uses a cache mechanism so the information retrieved for a given genome only gets downloaded once during the current R session (note that the caching is done in memory so cached information does NOT persist across sessions). Setting recache to TRUE forces a new download (and recaching) of the list of tracks for the specified genome.

Value

A data frame with 1 row per track and 5 columns: track, primary_table, type, group, composite_track.

Note that columns group and composite_track can contain NAs.

See Also

Examples

## List all tracks for ce2 genome:
list_UCSC_tracks("ce2")

## List tracks in the "rna" group only:
list_UCSC_tracks("ce2", group="rna")

## Note that some tracks don't belong to any group:
list_UCSC_tracks("hg38", group=NA)

Conveniently retrieve data from the UCSC MariaDB server

Description

A convenience utility to retrieve data from the UCSC MariaDB server via simple SQL SELECT statements.

Requires the RMariaDB package!

Usage

UCSC_dbselect(dbname, from, columns=NULL, where=NULL, MoreSQL=NULL,
              host="genome-mysql.soe.ucsc.edu", port=3306)

Arguments

dbname

A single string specifying the name of the database to connect to. This is usually the name of a valid UCSC genome e.g. "hg38", "mm39", or "sacCer3". See ?list_UCSC_genomes for how to get the list of valid UCSC genome names.

from

A single string specifying the input data, that is, the FROM clause of the SELECT statement. This is typically the name of an SQL table, or a join-clause, or a sub-query.

columns

NULL (the default), or a character vector specifying the columns to return. By default all columns are returned.

where

NULL (the default), or a single string specifying the WHERE clause of the SELECT statement.

MoreSQL

NULL (the default), or a character vector containing additional SQL clauses e.g. GROUP BY, ORDER BY, and/or LIMIT clauses.

host

A single string specifying the name of the server's host

port

The TCP/IP port to use to connect to the server.

Details

UCSC_dbselect is an alternative to fetch_UCSC_track_data that is more efficient and gives the user more control on what data to retrieve exactly from the server.

However, the downside is that UCSC_dbselect does not work with all tracks! This is because, not all track data are stored in a database: some tracks are actually file-based (e.g. bigBed tracks). See below for an example.

Value

A data frame.

See Also

Examples

### Retrieve full "ncbiGene" table ("NCBI Genes" track) for eboVir3:
UCSC_dbselect("eboVir3", "ncbiGene")

### Retrieve subset of "sgpGene" table ("SGP Genes" track) for hg38:
UCSC_dbselect("hg38", "sgpGene", where="chrom='chrM'")

### Retrieve subset of "gap" table for gorGor6:
columns <- c("chrom", "chromStart", "chromEnd", "type")
where <- "chrom='chrX' AND type='contig'"
UCSC_dbselect("gorGor6", "gap", columns=columns, where=where)

### With a LEFT JOIN and a LIMIT clause:
from <- paste("ncbiRefSeq LEFT JOIN ncbiRefSeqLink",
              "ON ncbiRefSeq.name=ncbiRefSeqLink.id")
res <- UCSC_dbselect("sacCer3", from, MoreSQL="LIMIT 5")
dim(res)

## WARNING: UCSC_dbselect() does not work with all tracks!
## For example it does not work with bigBed tracks:
subset(list_UCSC_tracks("hg38", group="genes"), grepl("bigBed 9", type))
## Not run: 
UCSC_dbselect("hg38", "crisprAllTargets")  # table doesn't exist!

## End(Not run)

Get or set the default UCSC API URL

Description

Convenience helper for getting or setting global option UCSC.api.url.

Usage

UCSC.api.url(api.url=NULL)

Arguments

api.url

A single string containing the URL to the alternative UCSC API to use by default.

For convenience, api.url can also be one of the following aliases:

  • "primary": alias for "https://api.genome.ucsc.edu" (primary URL, US West Coast);

  • "": same as "primary";

  • "europe": alias for "https://genome-euro.ucsc.edu/cgi-bin/hubApi" (Europe mirror);

  • "asia": alias for "https://genome-asia.ucsc.edu/cgi-bin/hubApi" (Asia mirror).

Details

Various functions in the UCSC.utils package query the UCSC REST API. This is the case for example for list_UCSC_genomes, get_UCSC_chrom_sizes, list_UCSC_tracks and more.

Global option UCSC.api.url controls the UCSC API URL that these functions use y default. The option is set to "https://api.genome.ucsc.edu" (primary URL, US West Coast) at package startup.

UCSC.api.url() and UCSC.api.url(some_url) are provided as convenient ways of doing getOption("UCSC.api.url") and options(UCSC.api.url=some_url), respectively.

Value

When called with no argument, UCSC.api.url() returns getOption("UCSC.api.url").

When passed an URL, UCSC.api.url(some_url) returns the previous URL, that is, the UCSC API URL that was previously used by default. Note that the previous URL is returned invisibly.

See Also

Examples

UCSC.api.url()  # current default value of the UCSC API URL
get_UCSC_chrom_sizes("ce11", recache=TRUE)

## Temporarily use the mirror in Europe:
previous_url <- UCSC.api.url("europe")
UCSC.api.url()  # new default value of the UCSC API URL

get_UCSC_chrom_sizes("ce11", recache=TRUE)

## Restore previous default value:
UCSC.api.url(previous_url)
UCSC.api.url()