union

 

Function

Concatenate multiple sequences into a single sequence

Description

union reads in several sequences, concatenates them and writes them out as a single sequence. The input is typically a list file containing references to multiple sequences or subsequences (regions of a sequence). Optionally, feature information will be used.

Usage

Here is a sample session with union

The file 'cds.list' contains a list of the regions making up the coding sequence of 'embl:x65923':


% union 
Concatenate multiple sequences into a single sequence
Input (gapped) sequence(s): @cds.list
output sequence [x65921.fasta]: 

Go to the input files for this example
Go to the output files for this example

Command line arguments

   Standard (Mandatory) qualifiers:
  [-sequence]          seqall     (Gapped) sequence(s) filename and optional
                                  format, or reference (input USA)
  [-outseq]            seqout     [.] Sequence filename and
                                  optional format (output USA)

   Additional (Optional) qualifiers:
   -overlapfile        outfile    [*.union] Sequence overlaps output file
                                  (optional)

   Advanced (Unprompted) qualifiers:
   -feature            boolean    [N] Use feature information
   -source             boolean    [N] Create source features
   -findoverlap        boolean    [N] Look for overlaps when joining

   Associated qualifiers:

   "-sequence" associated qualifiers
   -sbegin1            integer    Start of each sequence to be used
   -send1              integer    End of each sequence to be used
   -sreverse1          boolean    Reverse (if DNA)
   -sask1              boolean    Ask for begin/end/reverse
   -snucleotide1       boolean    Sequence is nucleotide
   -sprotein1          boolean    Sequence is protein
   -slower1            boolean    Make lower case
   -supper1            boolean    Make upper case
   -sformat1           string     Input sequence format
   -sdbname1           string     Database name
   -sid1               string     Entryname
   -ufo1               string     UFO features
   -fformat1           string     Features format
   -fopenfile1         string     Features file name

   "-outseq" associated qualifiers
   -osformat2          string     Output seq format
   -osextension2       string     File name extension
   -osname2            string     Base file name
   -osdirectory2       string     Output directory
   -osdbname2          string     Database name to add
   -ossingle2          boolean    Separate file for each entry
   -oufo2              string     UFO features
   -offormat2          string     Features format
   -ofname2            string     Features file name
   -ofdirectory2       string     Output directory

   "-overlapfile" associated qualifiers
   -odirectory         string     Output directory

   General qualifiers:
   -auto               boolean    Turn off prompts
   -stdout             boolean    Write first file to standard output
   -filter             boolean    Read first file from standard input, write
                                  first file to standard output
   -options            boolean    Prompt for standard and additional values
   -debug              boolean    Write debug output to program.dbg
   -verbose            boolean    Report some/full command line options
   -help               boolean    Report command line options. More
                                  information on associated and general
                                  qualifiers can be found with -help -verbose
   -warning            boolean    Report warnings
   -error              boolean    Report errors
   -fatal              boolean    Report fatal errors
   -die                boolean    Report dying program messages

Standard (Mandatory) qualifiers Allowed values Default
[-sequence]
(Parameter 1)
(Gapped) sequence(s) filename and optional format, or reference (input USA) Readable sequence(s) Required
[-outseq]
(Parameter 2)
Sequence filename and optional format (output USA) Writeable sequence <*>.format
Additional (Optional) qualifiers Allowed values Default
-overlapfile Sequence overlaps output file (optional) Output file <*>.union
Advanced (Unprompted) qualifiers Allowed values Default
-feature Use feature information Boolean value Yes/No No
-source Create source features Boolean value Yes/No No
-findoverlap Look for overlaps when joining Boolean value Yes/No No

Input file format

The input can be any set of sequences in a file of multiple sequence entries or in a List file. The sequences are concatenated in the order in which they appear in the file.

Input files for usage example

File: cds.list

tembl-id:X65921[782:856]
tembl-id:X65921[951:1095]
tembl-id:X65921[1557:1612]
tembl-id:X65921[1787:1912]

You may find the program yank useful for creating List files.

Output file format

Output files for usage example

File: x65921.fasta

>X65921 X65921.1 H.sapiens fau 1 gene
atgcagctctttgtccgcgcccaggagctacacaccttcgaggtgaccggccaggaaacg
gtcgcccagatcaaggctcatgtagcctcactggagggcattgccccggaagatcaagtc
gtgctcctggcaggcgcgcccctggaggatgaggccactctgggccagtgcggggtggag
gccctgactaccctggaagtagcaggccgcatgcttggaggtaaagtccatggttccctg
gcccgtgctggaaaagtgagaggtcagactcctaaggtggccaaacaggagaagaagaag
aagaagacaggtcgggctaagcggcggatgcagtacaaccggcgctttgtcaacgttgtg
cccacctttggcaagaagaagggccccaatgccaactcttaa

The result is a normal sequence file containing a single sequence resulting from the concatenation of the input sequences.

Data files

None.

Notes

union is most useful when the input sequences are specified in a "list file". A list file contain references to any number of sequences which are retrieved from some other file or database. Each sequence reference is a Uniform Sequence Address (USA) which can include the specification of sub-regions of the sequence, eg. em:x65923[20:55]). Specifying several such subregions in a sequence or sequences allows you to enter disjoint sequences to be joined.

References

None.

Warnings

None.

Diagnostic Error Messages

None.

Exit status

It always exits with status 0.

Known bugs

None.

See also

Program name Description
aligncopy Reads and writes alignments
aligncopypair Reads and writes pairs from alignments
biosed Replace or delete sequence sections
codcopy Copy and reformat a codon usage table
cutseq Removes a section from a sequence
degapseq Removes non-alphabetic (e.g. gap) characters from sequences
descseq Alter the name or description of a sequence
entret Retrieves sequence entries from flatfile databases and files
extractalign Extract regions from a sequence alignment
extractfeat Extract features from sequence(s)
extractseq Extract regions from a sequence
featcopy Reads and writes a feature table
featreport Reads and writes a feature table
listor Write a list file of the logical OR of two sets of sequences
makenucseq Create random nucleotide sequences
makeprotseq Create random protein sequences
maskambignuc Masks all ambiguity characters in nucleotide sequences with N
maskambigprot Masks all ambiguity characters in protein sequences with X
maskfeat Write a sequence with masked features
maskseq Write a sequence with masked regions
newseq Create a sequence file from a typed-in sequence
nohtml Remove mark-up (e.g. HTML tags) from an ASCII text file
noreturn Remove carriage return from ASCII files
nospace Remove all whitespace from an ASCII text file
notab Replace tabs with spaces in an ASCII text file
notseq Write to file a subset of an input stream of sequences
nthseq Write to file a single sequence from an input stream of sequences
pasteseq Insert one sequence into another
revseq Reverse and complement a nucleotide sequence
seqret Reads and writes (returns) sequences
seqretsplit Reads sequences and writes them to individual files
sizeseq Sort sequences by size
skipredundant Remove redundant sequences from an input set
skipseq Reads and writes (returns) sequences, skipping first few
splitter Split sequence(s) into smaller sequences
trimest Remove poly-A tails from nucleotide sequences
trimseq Remove unwanted characters from start and end of sequence(s)
trimspace Remove extra whitespace from an ASCII text file
vectorstrip Removes vectors from the ends of nucleotide sequence(s)
yank Add a sequence reference (a full USA) to a list file

You may find the program yank useful for creating List files.

Author(s)

Peter Rice (pmr © ebi.ac.uk)
Informatics Division, European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SD, UK

History

Written (March 2002) - Peter Rice.

Target users

This program is intended to be used by everyone and everything, from naive users to embedded scripts.

Comments

None