mcpbeat

Bio Microbiome Amplicon Processing

biotender-max/bio-microbiome-amplicon-processing

Amplicon sequence variant (ASV) inference from 16S rRNA or ITS amplicon sequencing using DADA2. Covers quality filtering, error learning, denoising, and chimera removal. Use when processing demultiplexed amplicon FASTQ files to generate an ASV table for downstream analysis.

2k tokens
context cost
the whole folder, loaded on every use
3
files
instructions only
0
copies elsewhere
how many repositories repackaged it
132
stars on the repo
on the repository, not the skill itself

Install

one command, takes just this skill from the repository
npx skills add https://github.com/BioTender-max/awesome-bio-agent-skills --skill bio-microbiome-amplicon-processing

What comes with it

4 978 bytes besides the instruction
examples/dada2_workflow.R
usage-guide.md

The instruction itself

12 sections, as written by the author

Version Compatibility

Reference examples tested with: DADA2 1.30+, cutadapt 4.4+

Before using code patterns, verify installed versions match. If versions differ:

  • R: packageVersion('<pkg>') then ?function_name to verify parameters

If code throws ImportError, AttributeError, or TypeError, introspect the installed

package and adapt the example to match the actual API rather than retrying.

Amplicon Processing with DADA2

"Process my 16S amplicon data to get ASVs" → Denoise amplicon sequencing reads into exact amplicon sequence variants (ASVs) through quality filtering, error model learning, and chimera removal.

  • R: dada2::filterAndTrim()learnErrors()dada()removeBimeraDenovo()

Complete DADA2 Workflow

library(dada2)

path <- 'raw_reads'
fnFs <- sort(list.files(path, pattern = '_R1_001.fastq.gz', full.names = TRUE))
fnRs <- sort(list.files(path, pattern = '_R2_001.fastq.gz', full.names = TRUE))
sample_names <- sapply(strsplit(basename(fnFs), '_'), `[`, 1)

# Quality profiles
plotQualityProfile(fnFs[1:2])
plotQualityProfile(fnRs[1:2])

Quality Filtering and Trimming

filtFs <- file.path('filtered', paste0(sample_names, '_F_filt.fastq.gz'))
filtRs <- file.path('filtered', paste0(sample_names, '_R_filt.fastq.gz'))
names(filtFs) <- sample_names
names(filtRs) <- sample_names

# Filter parameters depend on amplicon region and read length
out <- filterAndTrim(fnFs, filtFs, fnRs, filtRs,
                     truncLen = c(240, 160),      # Trim to quality scores
                     maxN = 0,                     # No ambiguous bases
                     maxEE = c(2, 2),              # Max expected errors
                     truncQ = 2,                   # Truncate at first Q <= 2
                     rm.phix = TRUE,               # Remove PhiX
                     compress = TRUE,
                     multithread = TRUE)

Error Rate Learning

errF <- learnErrors(filtFs, multithread = TRUE)
errR <- learnErrors(filtRs, multithread = TRUE)

# Visualize error rates
plotErrors(errF, nominalQ = TRUE)

Sample Inference (Denoising)

dadaFs <- dada(filtFs, err = errF, multithread = TRUE)
dadaRs <- dada(filtRs, err = errR, multithread = TRUE)

# Check results
dadaFs[[1]]

Merge Paired Reads

mergers <- mergePairs(dadaFs, filtFs, dadaRs, filtRs, verbose = TRUE)

# Check merge success
head(mergers[[1]])

Construct Sequence Table

seqtab <- makeSequenceTable(mergers)
dim(seqtab)

# Check length distribution
table(nchar(getSequences(seqtab)))

Remove Chimeras

seqtab_nochim <- removeBimeraDenovo(seqtab, method = 'consensus',
                                     multithread = TRUE, verbose = TRUE)

# Percentage retained
sum(seqtab_nochim) / sum(seqtab)

Track Reads Through Pipeline

Goal: Generate a per-sample summary table showing how many reads survived each DADA2 processing step for quality assessment.

Approach: Extract read counts from each pipeline stage (filtering, denoising, merging, chimera removal) and combine into a single tracking matrix.

getN <- function(x) sum(getUniques(x))
track <- cbind(out, sapply(dadaFs, getN), sapply(dadaRs, getN),
               sapply(mergers, getN), rowSums(seqtab_nochim))
colnames(track) <- c('input', 'filtered', 'denoisedF', 'denoisedR', 'merged', 'nonchim')
rownames(track) <- sample_names
track

ITS-Specific Processing

# For ITS, use cutadapt to remove primers first (variable length amplicons)
# Then skip truncLen (don't truncate ITS to fixed length)

out_its <- filterAndTrim(fnFs, filtFs, fnRs, filtRs,
                         maxN = 0, maxEE = c(2, 2), truncQ = 2,
                         minLen = 50,  # Minimum length
                         rm.phix = TRUE, compress = TRUE, multithread = TRUE)
  • taxonomy-assignment - Assign taxonomy to ASVs
  • read-qc/quality-reports - Pre-DADA2 quality assessment
  • diversity-analysis - Analyze ASV table

How to use it

Copy the folder

Take biotender-max/bio-microbiome-amplicon-processing from the repository into ~/.claude/skills for personal use, or into .claude/skills inside a project.

Check the name does not clash

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