TADMaster: A Comprehensive Web-based Tool for the Analysis of Topologically Associated Domains

Bioinformatics Lab, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs

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Developers:

Sean Higgins
Department of Computer Science
University of Colorado, Colorado Springs
Email: shiggins@uccs.edu

Victor Akpokiro
Department of Computer Science
University of Colorado, Colorado Springs
Email: vakpokir@uccs.edu

Contact:

Oluwatosin Oluwadare, PhD
Department of Computer Science
University of Colorado, Colorado Springs
Email: ooluwada@uccs.edu

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Access TADMaster: http://tadmaster.io

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Build Instructions:

TADMaster can be run in a Docker-containerized environment locally on users computer. Before cloning this repository and attempting to build, the Docker engine, If you are new to docker here is a quick docker tutorial for beginners.
To install and build TADMaster follow these steps.

1. Clone this repository locally using the command git clone https://github.com/OluwadareLab/TADMaster.git && cd TADMaster.
2. Pull the TADMaster docker image from docker hub using the command docker pull oluwadarelab/tadmaster:latest. This may take a few minutes. Once finished, check that the image was sucessfully pulled using docker image ls.
3. Run the TADMaster container and mount the present working directory to the container using docker run -v ${PWD}:${PWD} -p 8050:8050 -it oluwadarelab/tadmaster.
4. cd to your home directory where TADMaster is downloaded.

👍 Congratulations! You can now run TADMaster and TADMaster Plus locally with no restriction.

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Dependencies:

TADMaster is written in Python3, Dash and includes many R, python c++ libraries necessary to run the various tools included and perform analysis visualization. All dependencies are included in the Docker environment. GPU is not loaded into the docker container as it is not needed to run TADMaster.

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Running local versions of TADMaster

Now, that you are running a docker container, follow the step by step instructions to execute the cloned TADMaster source codes for job processing and visualization.

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Running TADMaster Plus:

STEP 1: Parameter Setting in TADMaster.config file

• Make changes to the TADMaster.config file based on your preferences.
  • We have provided some default parameter settings as an example.
• Required Inputs are : Specify the input matrix path, chromosome number, resolution and input datatype.
  • We have provided some default parameter setting as an example.
• Use True or False to turn on or off respectively a Normalization or TADCaller algorithm.
  • By default we Turned on Normalization: KR and TADCallers: Armatus and DI

STEP 2: Path change in TADMasterPlus.sh and caller.sh scripts

In both scripts:

• Replace path_directory in line 1 to the directory where your TADMaster.config file is located
  • We have provided some default settings as an example.
• Change the home_path to the directory where TADMaster repository files you downloaded is located
  • We have provided some default settings as an example.
• make a new directory: mkdir example_job_output
• Change the job_path to the path directory where you want the job processing outputs to be saved
  • We assigned job_path directory toexample_job_output in both scripts.

STEP 3: Run the TADMasterPlus.sh script

$ chmod +x TADMasterPlus.sh 
$./TADMasterPlus.sh 

• Running this script with this settings should take about 2 minutes.
• Once Completed, TADMasterPlus will generate all outputs in the output path, job_path directory, that the user identified.
• TADMAster Plus also generates a Read.me file that describes the output file structure and organization.

STEP 4: Analysis Visualization

Refer to the Visualization Section below for this.

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Running TADMaster:

STEP A: Data Preprocessing

• Extract the TADMaster output file structure we provided.

$ tar -xvf job_tadmaster.tar.gz 

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STEP B: Bed file Upload

Next, copy the .bed files you want to perform analysis on into the directory path specified below based on the pathway you followed above.
We have provided two example bed files you can use as a sample in the Data Folder

• Path to copy the bed files into: job_tadmaster/output/NoMatrixProvided/ . where
  • job_tadmaster by default is the name of the passive output directory extracted in Step A into the TADMaster directory. Passive because it wasn't specified by you.
  • NoMatrixProvided signifies that no matrix was provided for the bed files

Note: See our wiki for information about BED file formats accepted by TADMaster

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STEP C: Analysis Visualization

Refer to the Visualization Section below for this.

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Analysis and Visualization

Preliminary Information

• When you have completed a TADMaster or TADMaster job submission, the next step is Visualization.
• At this step, your job should be in the output path, job_path directory, which would contain the BED Files to perform analysis and visualization on.
  • BED files will be located in job_path/output/<name_of_identifier_used>/
• To visualize the analysis from the bed files:

STEP 1: Parameter Setting in tadmaster_visualize.py script

• Required Inputs are : Specify the resolution, chromosome number, and job_path of the job
  • We have provided some default input assignment as an example for TADMaster Plus Job visualization.

STEP 2: Run the Visualize.py script

$ python tadmaster_visualize.py

STEP 3: Visualize on your Local browser

• Once, you have executed the python script, You should get the message that Dash is running on http://0.0.0.0:8050/ (ignore warning messages provided). 👍 Congratulations! This means that you can visualize locally.

• Open your browser and copy the URL shown. You would be able to access the visualization of the output jobs.

• Please note that for some browsers, like safari, localhost URL could be different. If URL:http://0.0.0.0:8050/ doesn't return a visualization, please use URL: http://127.0.0.1:8050

Important Note for Users: Minor compatibility issues between certain operating systems and browsers have been observed with the local TADMaster visualization script. These issues arise from improper loading of data chunks and can be resolved by closing the browser (or tab) and reloading local host.

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Content of Folder:

• job_861482c1-927a-487c-a18a-a2be43fe0478.zip: A previously submitted job
• Data: Sample input data accepted
• TADCaller: TAD algorithm source codes used by TADMaster
• Analysis: Pre- and Post- processing scripts used by TADMaster
• normalization: Libraries and Scripts to support data normalization for the web server

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Web Server Version Documentation

Please see the wiki for an extensive documentation of how to use TADMaster functions

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cite:

Higgins, S., Akpokiro, V., Westcott, A., & Oluwadare, O. (2022). TADMaster: a comprehensive web-based tool for the analysis of topologically associated domains. BMC bioinformatics, 23(1), 1-10.

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