Samtools CRAMS in support for improved compression formats
The Global Alliance for Genomics and Health, in which the Sanger Institute is a partner, has been set up to enable researchers and clinicians to work together using standardised and efficient DNA sequence data formats to find the genetic variants responsible for disease. Samtools 1.0 supports this initiative by enabling researchers to read and write data in the new CRAM format, which was recently adopted by the Global Alliance, in addition to the existing SAM and BAM file formats for genomic sequence information.
The benefits of using CRAM are immediate: it gives a size reduction of 10-30 per cent. In addition, in a similar fashion to the JPEG format for images, CRAM supports much greater compression – up to a hundred fold – in ‘lossy’ mode which preserves almost all of the important information.
“This major rebuild of Samtools reflects our commitment to supporting the global use of sequencing data. Genome science worldwide relies on fast and efficient data analysis and storage, and Samtools 1.0 fulfils this need by supporting new sequencing and analysis technologies.”
Dr Richard Durbin Head of Computational Genomics at the Sanger Institute
Samtools software is embedded in many bioinformatics pipelines and is the foundation of many thousands of genomic research papers. Since its creation in 2009, the program has been downloaded more than 225,000 times. Samtools 1.0 is freely available at http://www.htslib.org/. This new version was substantially rewritten to support the highly efficient genomic data format CRAM, add new functionality, and integrate more cleanly with other tools.
“Samtools 1.0 embeds CRAM into genomic data analysis pipelines and removes the need for additional processing. This development paves the way for widespread uptake of this highly efficient file format in genomic research and will lead to lower storage costs.”
John Marshall Sanger Institute
The significant savings in storage that can be achieved are due to incorporating data compression techniques developed jointly by the Sanger Institute and the EMBL-European Bioinformatics Institute.
“It has been exciting to work on implementing CRAM into Samtools. The great flexibility of CRAM has allowed a number of new compression techniques to be incorporated, which when combined with Samtools 1.0 will help to future-proof genomic data storage and analysis.”
James Bonfield Sanger Institute
More information
Selected websites
The Global Alliance for Genomics and Health
The Global Alliance for Genomics and Health is an international, non-profit alliance formed to help accelerate the potential of genomic medicine to advance human health. Bringing together over 150 leading institutions working in healthcare, research, disease and patient advocacy, life science, and information technology, partners in the Global Alliance are working together to create a common framework of standards and harmonized approaches to enable the responsible, voluntary, and secure sharing of genomic and clinical data.
The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute
The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute is one of the world’s leading genome centres. Through its ability to conduct research at scale, it is able to engage in bold and long-term exploratory projects that are designed to influence and empower medical science globally. Institute research findings, generated through its own research programmes and through its leading role in international consortia, are being used to develop new diagnostics and treatments for human disease.
The Wellcome Trust
The Wellcome Trust is a global charitable foundation dedicated to achieving extraordinary improvements in human and animal health. We support the brightest minds in biomedical research and the medical humanities. Our breadth of support includes public engagement, education and the application of research to improve health. We are independent of both political and commercial interests.
