Skip to content

Research skills

Browse reusable Agent Skills, each with a clear purpose and practical guidance.

bio-comparative-genomics-hgt-detection

Detect horizontal gene transfer (HGT / LGT) using compositional methods (GC%, codon usage, tetranucleotide z-scores via SIGI-HMM, AlienHunter, IslandViewer 4, IslandPath-DIMOB), phylogenetic-incongruence methods (AvP, HGTphyloDetect, ALE / GeneRax / AleRax reconciliation, RANGER-DTL), and BLAST-distribution methods (HGTector v2, DarkHorse, Alien Index). Use when screening prokaryote genomes for genomic islands and HGT events, distinguishing HGT from incomplete lineage sorting / differential gene loss / hybridization, mapping donor lineages via phylogenetic placement, separating eukaryotic HGT from contamination, ruling out gBGC as a false signal, or quantifying DTL rates with ALE/GeneRax on bacterial trees.

115 repo stars24 repo forks

Research

bio-comparative-genomics-introgression-detection

Detect introgression and admixture between species or populations using Dsuite (Malinsky 2021 fast D-statistics), Patterson's D / ABBA-BABA test (Green 2010; Durand 2011), f4-ratio and f-branch statistic (Malinsky 2018), TreeMix (Pickrell & Pritchard 2012), HyDe (Blischak 2018), QuIBL (Edelman 2019), sprime (Browning 2018), Twisst (Martin 2017), PhyloNet (Solis-Lemus 2017) for explicit phylogenetic networks, and qpAdm / qpGraph (Patterson 2012; Lipson 2013). Distinguish introgression from incomplete lineage sorting (ILS), ancestral structure, ghost-lineage admixture, and rate variation. Use when testing inter-species gene flow, dating admixture events, identifying introgressed segments, building phylogenetic networks for reticulate evolution, or applying the ABBAclustering (Koppetsch-Malinsky-Matschiner 2024) framework for divergent-species gene flow.

115 repo stars24 repo forks

Research

bio-comparative-genomics-ortholog-inference

Infer orthologous genes and gene families across species using OrthoFinder3 (HOG-based phylogenetic orthology), SonicParanoid2, Broccoli, ProteinOrtho, OMA / FastOMA hierarchical orthologous groups, eggNOG-mapper, JustOrthologs, and TOGA whole-genome-alignment orthology. Use when building single-copy ortholog sets for phylogenomics, classifying co-orthologs and in/out-paralogs after gene duplication, propagating functional annotation via orthology with awareness of the ortholog conjecture, distinguishing speciation from duplication via gene-tree species-tree reconciliation, computing Quest-for-Orthologs benchmark performance, or running synteny-aware ortholog detection in WGD-affected lineages.

115 repo stars24 repo forks

Research

bio-comparative-genomics-positive-selection

Detect positive (diversifying / episodic / pervasive) selection using codon dN/dS frameworks. Implements PAML codeml site models (M0/M1a/M2a/M7/M8/M8a), branch models, branch-site model A (Zhang 2005), and HyPhy methods (BUSTED, BUSTED-S, BUSTED-MH, BUSTED-PH, MEME, FEL, FUBAR, aBSREL, SLAC, RELAX, GARD, FUBAR-MH). Includes McDonald-Kreitman framework (asymptotic alpha, impMKT, polyDFE, DFE-alpha, GRAPES) for within-species + divergence inference, RERconverge for trait-correlated rate shifts, CSUBST for convergent substitution, and PhyloAcc for accelerated noncoding evolution. Use when testing adaptive evolution at codons, branches, or full gene; running GARD recombination pre-screen; controlling alignment-error and gBGC false positives; reconciling PAML vs HyPhy results; or performing genome-scale selection scans.

115 repo stars24 repo forks

Research

bio-comparative-genomics-synteny-analysis

Detect syntenic blocks and structural rearrangements between genomes using MCScanX (Wang 2012), JCVI/MCScan (Tang 2008 Python), GENESPACE (Lovell 2022) for orthology-anchored riparian visualization, SyRI for structural variation, AnchorWave for sequence-level synteny, i-ADHoRe 3.0 for highly diverged species, SynNet for synteny networks, and ntSynt for multi-genome macrosynteny. Use when identifying collinear gene blocks across species, distinguishing macrosynteny from microsynteny, detecting inversions/translocations/duplications, anchoring orthology in WGD lineages, producing publication riparian plots, computing synteny block age via Ks (cross-references whole-genome-duplication), or running synteny-aware ortholog inference in polyploids.

115 repo stars24 repo forks

Research

bio-comparative-genomics-whole-genome-duplication

Detect, date, and contextualize whole-genome duplication (WGD / paleopolyploidy) events using wgd v2 (Chen & Zwaenepoel 2024), KsRates (Sensalari 2022 substitution-rate-corrected Ks dating), DupGen_finder (Qiao 2019), MAPS (Li 2018 phylogenomic), POInT (Conant 2008 ordered-block), SLEDGe (2024 ML-based), Whale.jl (Bayesian DTL+WGD), and synteny-anchored paranome construction. Use when identifying ancient polyploidy from Ks distributions and synteny block analysis, positioning WGD events relative to speciation, distinguishing tandem from segmental from WGD duplications, dating the 2R/3R vertebrate / fish / salmonid WGDs, building paranome and Ks-age mixture models, applying KsRates substitution-rate correction across lineages, or testing alternative biased-fractionation / dosage-balance models post-WGD.

115 repo stars24 repo forks

Research

bio-copy-number-recurrent-cnv

Identify recurrent and driver copy number alterations across a tumor cohort with GISTIC2 (G-score, Ziggurat deconstruction, focal vs broad/arm-level analysis, q-values from permutation) and quantify copy-number signatures with the Steele 2022 COSMIC framework and the Drews 2022 CINSignatures framework. Covers driver-gene localization from recurrence peaks, distinguishing focal drivers from arm-level passengers, and the caller-sensitivity caveats of copy-number signatures. Use when finding recurrently amplified or deleted regions in a cohort, localizing driver genes, separating focal from broad events, running GISTIC2, or extracting copy-number mutational signatures.

115 repo stars24 repo forks

Research

bio-copy-number-subclonal-copy-number

Resolve subclonal copy number, whole-genome doubling, and copy-number tumor evolution from bulk sequencing with Battenberg, TITAN, and MEDICC2. Covers clonal versus subclonal copy-number states, haplotype phasing for subclonal resolution, cancer cell fraction, whole-genome-doubling detection and timing relative to mutations, mirrored subclonal allelic imbalance, and copy-number phylogenies. Use when a tumor is heterogeneous and bulk data shows non-integer copy number, when calling subclonal CNAs, detecting or timing whole-genome doubling, reconstructing copy-number evolution, or deciding between Battenberg and TITAN.

115 repo stars24 repo forks

Research

bio-crispr-screens-bagel-essentiality

Identifies essential genes from CRISPR-Cas9 fitness screens using BAGEL2 (Kim & Hart 2021 Genome Med), a Bayesian classifier scoring per-gene Bayes Factors via log-likelihood ratios over per-sgRNA fold changes, calibrated against CEGv2 core-essentials (Hart 2017 G3, ~684 genes) and NEGv1 non-essentials (Hart 2014, ~927 genes). Covers the fc + bf + pr workflow, the linear-extrapolation improvement over BAGEL1 truncation, multi-target off-target correction, tumor-suppressor sensitivity (BAGEL2 detects enrichment), and BF-to-FDR calibration (BF >6 ≈ FDR 0.05 from Hart 2017). Use when classifying essential vs non-essential genes, calibrating BAGEL2 thresholds against PR curves, identifying tumor suppressors alongside essentials, comparing BAGEL2 hits to MAGeCK / drugZ, or generating publication-quality essentiality calls.

115 repo stars24 repo forks

Research

bio-crispr-screens-in-vivo-screens

Designs and analyzes in vivo CRISPR screens in animal tumor models, organoids, and immune-cell adoptive transfers. Covers bottleneck math (250x cells/sgRNA requires ~25M cells implanted; impossible for most syngeneic models, forcing focused libraries), focused library design (Manguso 2017 Nature 547:413 immune screen; Chen 2015 tumor screens), CRISPR-StAR intrinsic-control screening (Uijttewaal 2025 Nat Biotechnol 43:1848), clonal-dynamics-limited detection, tumor-explant DNA recovery, syngeneic vs xenograft vs PDX considerations, and the relationship to downstream MAGeCK / drugZ analysis. Use when designing in vivo CRISPR screens for tumor / immune / metastasis biology, choosing focused vs genome-wide for animal models, addressing bottleneck-induced clonal collapse, picking the syngeneic / xenograft / PDX model, integrating in vivo with in vitro results, or applying CRISPR-StAR for animal experiments.

115 repo stars24 repo forks

Research