Statically linked binaries are available from the Alfred github release page. There is also an Alfred Bioconda package.
To build Alfred from source you need some build essentials and the Boost libraries, i.e. for Ubuntu:
apt install build-essential g++ cmake git-all liblzma-dev zlib1g-dev libbz2-dev liblzma-dev libboost-date-time-dev libboost-program-options-dev libboost-system-dev libboost-filesystem-dev libboost-iostreams-dev
Once you have installed these system libraries you can compile and link Alfred.
git clone --recursive https://github.com/tobiasrausch/alfred.git
cd alfred/
make all
make install
./bin/alfred -h
Alfred computes various alignment metrics and summary statistics by read group
./src/alfred qc -r <ref.fa> -o qc.tsv.gz <align.bam>
Plotting alignment statistics
Rscript scripts/stats.R qc.tsv.gz
To convert all the alignment metrics from column format to row format for readability
zgrep ^ME qc.tsv.gz | cut -f 2- | datamash transpose | column -t
Quality control metrics can be browsed interactively using the web front end of Alfred.
./src/alfred qc -r <ref.fa> -f json -o qc.json.gz <align.bam>
Then just upload the qc.json.gz file to the Alfred GUI https://gear.embl.de/alfred. A convenient feature of the web-front end is that multiple samples can be compared (as shown in the online example) if json files are merged prior to the upload.
python ./scripts/merge.py sample1.json.gz sample2.json.gz sampleN.json.gz | gzip -c > multisample.json.gz
If target regions are provided, Alfred computes the average coverage for each target and the on-target rate.
./src/alfred qc -r <ref.fa> -b <targets.bed.gz> -o <qc.tsv.gz> <align.bam>
For instance, for a human whole-exome data set.
cd maps/ && Rscript exon.R
./src/alfred qc -r <hg19.fa> -b maps/exonic.hg19.bed.gz -o qc.tsv.gz <exome.bam>
Rscript scripts/stats.R qc.tsv.gz
Alternatively, one can use the interactive GUI and upload the json file.
./src/alfred qc -r <hg19.fa> -b maps/exonic.hg19.bed.gz -f json -o qc.json.gz <exome.bam>
For ATAC-Seq data, the insert size distribution should reveal the DNA pitch and a clear nucleosome pattern with a peak for single nucleosomes and dimers. The transcription start site (TSS) enrichment should be >5 for a good ATAC-Seq library and ideally the duplicate rate is <20%, the alignment rate >70% and the standardized SD in coverage >0.3.
cd maps/ && Rscript promoter.R
./src/alfred qc -r <hg19.fa> -b maps/hg19.promoter.bed.gz -o qc.tsv.gz <atac.bam>
Rscript scripts/stats.R qc.tsv.gz
zgrep ^ME qc.tsv.gz | datamash transpose | egrep "^Dup|^MappedFraction|^SD|^Enrich"
ATAC-Seq libraries often have a large number of mitochondrial reads depending on the library preparation.
zgrep ^CM qc.tsv.gz | egrep "Mapped|chrM"
Alternatively, one can use the interactive GUI and upload the json file.
./src/alfred qc -r <hg19.fa> -b maps/hg19.promoter.bed.gz -f json -o qc.json.gz <atac.bam>
Alfred can also assign reads to gene annotation features from a GTF file such as counting reads by gene or transcript identifier.
cd gtf/ && ./downloadGTF.sh
./src/alfred count_rna -g gtf/Homo_sapiens.GRCh37.75.gtf.gz <align.GRCh37.bam>
For DNA sequencing, Alfred can be used to calculate the coverage in overlapping or non-overlapping windows or in given set of intervals.
./src/alfred count_dna -o <cov.gz> <align.GRCh37.bam>
To plot the whole-chromosome coverage profile for chr1-22 and chrX.
Rscript scripts/rd.R <cov.gz>
Alfred can also be used to annotate peaks from ChIP-Seq or ATAC-Seq experiments. For instance to annotate overlapping/neighboring genes up to a distance of 10,000bp:
./src/alfred annotate -d 10000 -g gtf/Homo_sapiens.GRCh37.75.gtf.gz <peaks.bed>
Motif annotation can also be done. For example:
cd motif/ && ./downloadMotifs.sh
./src/alfred annotate -r <hg19.fa> -m motif/jaspar.gz <peaks.bed>
The github source code includes a minimal example to check that alfred compiled properly from source and that the web front end is working.
./src/alfred qc -r example/E.coli.fa.gz -o example/stats.tsv.gz example/E.coli.cram
Rscript scripts/stats.R example/stats.tsv.gz
For the web front end.
./src/alfred qc -r example/E.coli.fa.gz -f json -o ecoli.json.gz example/E.coli.cram
Please upload ecoli.json.gz to the Alfred web application.
The Alfred web application includes a multi-sample example for whole-exome data including multiple read-groups. Additional examples for whole-genome sequencing, long-read sequencing, Hi-C, ATAC-Seq and other data sets are coming soon.
htseq-count was used to benchmark and validate the RNA read counting.