AIAP: A Quality Control and Integrative Analysis Package to Improve ATAC-seq Data Analysis

Assay for transposase-accessible chromatin with high-throughput sequencing(ATAC-seq) is a technique widely used to investigate genome-wide chromatin accessibility. The recently published Omni-ATAC-seq protocol substantially improves the signal/noise ratio and reduces the input cell number. High-quality data are critical to ensure accurate analysis.Several tools have been developed for assessing sequencing quality and insertion size distribution for ATAC-seq data;however, key quality control(QC) metrics have not yet been established to accurately determine the quality of ATAC-seq data. Here, we optimized the analysis strategy for ATAC-seq and defined a series of QC metrics for ATAC-seq data,including reads under peak ratio(RUPr), background(BG), promoter enrichment(Pro En), subsampling enrichment(Sub En), and other measurements. We incorporated these QC tests into our recently developed ATAC-seq Integrative Analysis Package(AIAP) to provide a complete ATAC-seq analysis system, including quality assurance, improved peak calling, and downstream differential analysis. We demonstrated a significant improvement of sensitivity(20%–60%) in both peak calling and differential analysis by processing paired-end ATAC-seq datasets using AIAP. AIAP is compiled into Docker/Singularity, and it can be executed by one command line to generate a comprehensive QC report. We used ENCODE ATAC-seq data to benchmark and generate QC recommendations, and developed q ATACViewer for the userfriendly interaction with the QC report. The software, source code, and documentation of AIAP are freely available at https://github.com/Zhang-lab/ATAC-seq_QC_analysis.

Genome assembly and transcriptome analysis provide insights into the antischistosome mechanism of Microtus fortis

Microtus fortis is the only mammalian host that exhibits intrinsic resistance against Schistosoma japonicum infection.However,the underlying molecular mechanisms of this resistance are not yet known.Here,we perform the first de novo genome assembly of M.fortis,comprehensive gene annotation analysis,and evolution analysis.Furthermore,we compare the recovery rate of schistosomes,pathological changes,and liver transcriptomes between M.fortis and mice at different time points after infection.We observe that the time and type of immune response in M.fortis are different from those in mice.M.fortis activates immune and inflammatory responses on the 10th day post infection,such as leukocyte extravasation,antibody activation,Fc-gamma receptor-mediated phagocytosis,and the interferon signaling cascade,which play important roles in preventing the development of schistosomes.In contrast,an intense immune response occurrs in mice at the late stages of infection and could not eliminate schistosomes.Infected mice suffer severe pathological injury and continuous decreases in cell cycle,lipid metabolism,and other functions.Our findings offer new insights into the intrinsic resistance mechanism of M.fortis against schistosome infection.The genome sequence also provides the basis for future studies of other important traits in M.fortis.