Identifying tuberculosis transmission links: from SNPs to transmission clusters

Overview
Creative Commons License: CC-BY Questions:
Objectives:
  • Create a SNP alignment

  • Calculate pairwise SNP distances between MTB samples

  • Identify transmission clusters based on SNP distances

  • Study the emergence and spread of drug resistance based on transmission analysis.

Requirements:
Time estimation: 2 hours
Level: Intermediate Intermediate
Supporting Materials:
Published: Mar 16, 2022
Last modification: Mar 12, 2024
License: Tutorial Content is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The GTN Framework is licensed under MIT
purl PURL: https://gxy.io/GTN:T00145
rating Rating: 4.5 (2 recent ratings, 6 all time)
version Revision: 15

In a disease outbreak situation, to understand the dynamics and the size of the outbreak, it is essential to detect transmission clusters to distinguish likely outbreak cases from unrelated background cases. Such detection is nowadays often based on actual sequencing data that enables quantitative conclusions about differences between pathogen isolates.

This tutorial guides you through transmission cluster identification from preprocessed whole-genome sequencing data of MTB strains. It consists of two parts:

  1. Part one starts from per-sample lists of mutations/variants (in variant call format, VCF), as derived from sequencing data through mapping of sequenced reads to a reference genome followed by variant calling. From the lists of variants, more specifically from the single nucleotide variants found for every sample, you will construct a sample distance matrix and identify likely transmission clusters based on overall sample similarity.

  2. Part two starts with drug-resistance profiles of the same samples and combines these profiles with the cluster information obtained in part one to enable reasoning about the validity of identified clusters and about evolution of drug resistance in the samples.

Both the lists of variants and the drug-resistance reports for all samples have been pre-generated for you, and can simply be imported into Galaxy from public sources.

Comment: Origin of the input data

This tutorial does not discuss the analysis steps that lead from sequencing data to lists of variants, nor the generation of drug-resistance profiles with the tool TB-Profiler. These topics are covered in the separate tutorial M. tuberculosis Variant Analysis instead.

If, after working through this and the other tutorial, you would like to combine the two to perform the complete analysis from sequenced reads to transmission clusters for the 20 samples used here, you can find their raw sequencing data in this Zenodo record, and two Galaxy workflows to process the data into VCFs and to generate drug-resistance profiles as supplementary material to this tutorial.

A series of webinars has been produced alongside this tutorial to provide some theoretical background for the topics touched here. Specifically, these are:

Watching at least some of them before or after doing the tutorial is highly recommended.

Agenda

In this tutorial, we will cover:

  1. Analysis Part 1: Identification of transmission clusters from per-sample variants
    1. Get the data
    2. Generate a SNP alignment
    3. Identify transmission clusters
  2. Analysis Part 2: Combining cluster information with drug-resistance reports
    1. Get the data
    2. Summarize the data
    3. Combine the drug-resistance and the cluster tables
  3. Interpretation of results
  4. Conclusion
  5. Bonus

Analysis Part 1: Identification of transmission clusters from per-sample variants

Get the data

Any analysis should get its own Galaxy history. So let’s start by creating a new one:

Hands-on: Prepare the Galaxy history
  1. Create a new history for this analysis

    Click the new-history icon at the top of the history panel:

    UI for creating new history

  2. Give the history a suitable name

    1. Click on galaxy-pencil (Edit) next to the history name (which by default is “Unnamed history”)
    2. Type the new name: MTB transmission clusters tutorial
    3. Click on Save

    If you do not have the galaxy-pencil (Edit) next to the history name:

    1. Click on Unnamed history (or the current name of the history) (Click to rename history) at the top of your history panel
    2. Type the new name: MTB transmission clusters tutorial
    3. Press Enter

As mentioned in the introduction, mapping and variant calling have already be performed for the 20 samples that we need to analyze. The result of this preprocessing are 20 VCF files that describe the mutations found for each of the samples, and which we now need to import into Galaxy.

The fastest way to do so, which lets us build a collection from the 20 datasets with correctly named elements (corresponding to the sample identifiers) directly during data upload is through the so-called Rule-based uploader. The Galaxy training material has dedicated tutorials, Rule Based Uploader and Rule Based Uploader Advanced, that introduce this powerful feature in detail.

For the purpose of this tutorial, it is enough if you simply follow the step-by-step instructions provided here exactly.

Hands-on: Data upload
  1. Import the following files from Zenodo

    https://zenodo.org/record/6010176/files/ERR1203059.vcf
    https://zenodo.org/record/6010176/files/ERR181435.vcf
    https://zenodo.org/record/6010176/files/ERR2659153.vcf
    https://zenodo.org/record/6010176/files/ERR2704678.vcf
    https://zenodo.org/record/6010176/files/ERR2704679.vcf
    https://zenodo.org/record/6010176/files/ERR2704687.vcf
    https://zenodo.org/record/6010176/files/ERR313115.vcf
    https://zenodo.org/record/6010176/files/ERR551620.vcf
    https://zenodo.org/record/6010176/files/ERR5987300.vcf
    https://zenodo.org/record/6010176/files/ERR5987352.vcf
    https://zenodo.org/record/6010176/files/ERR6362078.vcf
    https://zenodo.org/record/6010176/files/ERR6362138.vcf
    https://zenodo.org/record/6010176/files/ERR6362139.vcf
    https://zenodo.org/record/6010176/files/ERR6362156.vcf
    https://zenodo.org/record/6010176/files/ERR6362253.vcf
    https://zenodo.org/record/6010176/files/ERR6362333.vcf
    https://zenodo.org/record/6010176/files/ERR6362484.vcf
    https://zenodo.org/record/6010176/files/ERR6362653.vcf
    https://zenodo.org/record/6010176/files/SRR13046689.vcf
    https://zenodo.org/record/6010176/files/SRR998584.vcf
    
    1. Copy the links above
    2. Open the Upload Manager
    3. In the top row of tabs select Rule-based
    4. Set Upload data as to Collection(s)
    5. Paste the copied links into the text field on the right
    6. Click Build to bring up the Rule Builder dialog
    7. Click on the wrench icon tool next to Rules in the left panel of the window
    8. In the text field, erase the prefilled content and copy/paste the following rule definition into it instead:

      {
        "rules": [
          {
            "type": "add_column_basename",
            "target_column": 0
          },
          {
            "type": "add_column_substr",
            "target_column": 1,
            "length": 4,
            "substr_type": "drop_suffix"
          }
        ],
        "mapping": [
          {
            "type": "url",
            "columns": [
              0
            ]
          },
          {
            "type": "list_identifiers",
            "columns": [
              2
            ],
            "editing": false
          }
        ]
      }
      
    9. Click on Apply
    10. In the bottom row of options, change Type from “Auto-detect” to vcf
    11. Set the name of the new collection to MTB sample variants
    12. Click on Upload

    It is ok to continue with the next step even while the upload of this data is still ongoing. Just click on the Close button of the information pop-up window if it is still open when you are ready to proceed.

  2. Upload the reference genome that was used for SNP calling from:

    https://zenodo.org/record/3497110/files/MTB_ancestor_reference.fasta
    

    and make sure the dataset format is set to fasta.

    • Copy the link location
    • Click galaxy-upload Upload Data at the top of the tool panel

    • Select galaxy-wf-edit Paste/Fetch Data
    • Paste the link(s) into the text field

    • Change Type (set all): from “Auto-detect” to fasta

    • Press Start

    • Close the window

Generate a SNP alignment

In this tutorial we aim to calculate the genetic differences (in SNPs) between pairs of MTB genomes. To do so, we need to compare, between each pair of genomes (thus pairwise), the nucleotides that are observed at each position. Each time we find a different nucleotide at a given position, we will sum 1 SNP of genetic distance. For example, if two strains have a genetic distance of 5 SNPs, that would mean that their respective genomes are almost identical, except for 5 positions along all the genome in which they have different nucleotides.

To do such calculation we need to first build an alignment of all the genomes (a multiple-sequence alignment, or MSA). Afterwards, we will use specific software to analyze this MSA, count SNPs, and thus calculate the genetic distance between each pair of samples.

MSA of 5 MTB genomes. Open image in new tab

Figure 1: A SNP is highlighted in a MSA of five MTB genomes

Generate complete genomes

The first step to generate the genomes MSA will be… to get the complete genomes of our samples! In the MTB Variant Analysis tutorial we have analyzed short-read high-throughput sequencing data (Illumina) to obtain the respective VCF files that describe the mutations found in each of our samples, as compared to the reference genome. We can now use these VCF files to build the complete genome of each of our samples.

Filter VCF files for epidemiological/phylogenetic investigation

Interpreting mixed calls or indels in phylogenetic/epidemiological applications can be very complicated. That is the reason why we typically use alignments that only contain fixed SNPs.

Thus, the first step in this tutorial will be to filter the VCFs so we are sure that they only contain fixed SNPs, which we (somewhat arbitrarily) define as those single-nucleotide variants that are observed at an allele frequency of 90% or greater. We will be using the tool TB Variant Filter for this task.

Note: TB variant Filter refers to SNPs as SNVs. These two short forms are interchangeable, meaning Single Nucleotide Polymorphism and Single Nucleotide Variant, respectively.

Hands-on: Filter VCF files for epidemiological investigation
  1. TB Variant Filter ( Galaxy version 0.3.6+galaxy0) with the following parameters:
    • param-collection “VCF file to be filter”: MTB variants per sample; the uploaded collection of VCF datasets
    • “Filters to apply”: Only accept SNVs, Filter variants by percentage alt allele
    • “Show options for the filters”: Yes
    • “Minimum alternate allele percentage to accept”: 90.0
Question

TB Variant Filter reads the VCF and output only SNPs that have, at least, 90% frequency. How can the software extract such information from the VCF datasets?

That information is contained, for each mutation, in the VCF:

  • The TYPE field within the INFO string will tell us if the mutation is a SNP (TYPE=snp)
  • You can look for other types of mutations like insertions (TYPE=ins)
  • The AF field within the INFO string describes the estimated Allele Frequency
  • In the absence of the AF field, the allele frequency can be calculated as: AO (alternate allele observations) / DP (depth of reads at the variant site)

Reconstruct the complete genome of each sample

Our new collection of VCF datasets now only contains fixed SNPs that were found in the genome of the respective strains. Genomic positions not in the VCF mean that, at that particular position, the strain has the same nucleotide than the reference genome. Knowing this information, one could reconstruct the complete genome of each strain pretty easily. From the first to the last position in the genome, one would put the same nucleotide than in the reference if that position is not in the VCF, or the SNP described in the VCF otherwise. This is exactly what the tool bcftools consensus will do for us, given the reference genome and the VCF of the strain we want to reconstruct the genome for.

Hands-on: Reconstruct the complete genome of each sample
  1. bcftools consensus ( Galaxy version 1.15.1+galaxy3) with the following parameters:
    • param-collection “VCF/BCF Data”: the collection of filtered variants per sample; output of TB Variant Filter
    • “Choose the source for the reference genome”: Use a genome from the history
      • param-file “Reference genome”: the uploaded MTB ancestor reference fasta dataset (the reference genome that was used for SNP-calling)
      • “Set output FASTA ID from name of VCF”: Yes
Question

Imagine that we forgot to filter the VCFs to contain only fixed variants, and there are also SNPs with frequencies, of 15%, 30%, or 56.78%. Which allele do you think bcftools consensus would insert in the genome?

The behaviour of bcftools consensus in this case can be specified with the option --haplotype For example, we can set haplotype=2 so the second allele will be used… wait… what?

Question: Second allelle!?

What do you think that things like “second allele” or “The alterntive allele” mean here?

Many of the bioinformatic programs are developed to analyze eukaryotic genomes, particularly human genomes. That means that these programs have in mind that the genomes are diploid and thus each posible position in the genome has two possible alleles. In bacterial genomics, in contrast, we are always sequencing a population of cells with potential genetic diversity (with the exception of single-cell sequencing). That does not mean that we cannot use this type of software, we can (and we do!) but it is good to know what they are meant for, and their possible limitations.

Multiple-sequence alignment (MSA) of all genomes

Multiple sequence alignment is a process in which multiple DNA, RNA or protein sequences are arranged to find regions of similarity that are supposed to reflect the consequences of different evolutionary processes (Figure 1). MSAs are used to test hypotheses about these evolutionary processes and to infer phylogenetic relationships, and for these reasons we build MSA for sequences for which we already assume some sort of evolutionary relationship. You will learn more on MSAs and phylogenetic inference in the next tutorial.

Building MSAs of several complete genomes can be a complicated process and computationally demanding. To perform such a task there are many software packages available like Muscle, MAFFT or Clustal, just to mention some. Which one are we going to use in this tutorial? Well, we are going to use a trick. We are going to just stack one genome on top of each other within a text file. (More on why we can do this below).

Our aim is to generate a multifasta dataset in which the genomes of our samples are aligned. Something that looks like this:

>Sample 1
TTGACCGATGACCCCGGTTCAGGCTTCACCACAGTGTGGAACGC...
>Sample 2
ATGACCGATGACCCCGGTTCAGGCTTCACCACAGTGTGGAACGC...
>Sample 3
TTCGTTCGATGACCCCGGTTCAGGCTTCACCACAGTGTGGAACG...

This could be done manually, by copy-pasting all genomes in a single text file. However we can do the same with a specific command that concatenates datasets.

Hands-on: Concatenate genomes to build a MSA
  1. Concatenate datasets tail-to-head (cat) ( Galaxy version 0.1.1) with the following parameters:
    • param-collection “Datasets to concatenate”: the collection of consensus genomes; output of bcftools consensus

Now we have a multifasta file, where each position of each genome corresponds to the same position of the rest of genomes in the file. This can be seen and used as a multiple-sequence alignment of all of our genomes! However, it is important that you understand the following question…

Question

Generating multiple-sequence alignments can be complicated and computationally demanding, and there are many software packages to perform such task. How is it possible that we were able to build a MSA by just stacking genomes one on top of each other? Can you think about what makes our case special, so we can just use this “trick”?

We have generated the complete genome of each sample by substituting in the reference genome those SNPs that we found in that said sample (described in the VCF). Remember that we removed indels from the VCF when filtering! Because the complete genomes we generated do not contain insertions or deletions, ALL the genomes have the same length (the length of the reference genome) and each nucleotide corresponds to the same genomic coordinate (the one also in the reference genome). So we are not aligning genomes per se and, knowing this, we can build a MSA by just stacking genomes that are the same length »AND« have the same coordinates.

Remove invariant positions

We have generated a MSA that is the basis for the transmission (clustering) and phylogenetic analysis. Although we could already use this MSA for such analysis, it is common practice to remove the invariant sites from the alignment. Think that our file now contains 20 genomes of 4.4 Mb each. MTB genomes have a very low genetic diversity, meaning that in reality, there are only some hundreds or thousands of SNPs in total, because the genomes are >99% identical between them. Identical positions in a MSA provide no information, so we can remove those and generate a SNP alignment that only contain variant positions with phylogenetic information. By doing this, we will generate a much smaller file, that will be easier to handle by downstream applications.

We can exemplify this with a couple of pictures:

In the following picture, a polymorphic position in the alignment (SNP) is highlighted in blue and green. Invariant positions are not highlighted and have an asterisc * on the upper part of the alignment. Most of the MSA is composed of these invariant positions, making our file larger than necessary.

MSA of 5 MTB genomes. Open image in new tab

Figure 2: A SNP is highlighted in a MSA of five MTB genomes

After removing invariant positions, we end up with a SNP alignment like the following.

MSA of 5 MTB genomes. Open image in new tab

Figure 3: A SNP alignment where all positions are polymorphic
Hands-on: Removing invariant sites from a MSA
  1. Finds SNP sites ( Galaxy version 2.5.1+galaxy0) with the following parameters:
    • param-file “FASTA file”: the concatenated consensus genomes; output of Concatenate datasets
    • “Output”: Sequence alignment / VCF
      • “Output formats”: Multi-FASTA alignment file

In SNP alignments you have to bear in mind that positions do not longer correspond to genomic coordinates, meaning that two contiguous nucleotides may correspond to coordinates thousands of positions apart.

Identify transmission clusters

Calculate pairwise SNP distances

Now we are all set to calculate pairwise SNP distances between samples and decide whether two patients are within the same transmission cluster or not. Having a SNP alignment, this is fairly easy. We will use SNP distance matrix, that will generate a matrix with pairwise SNP distances.

Hands-on: Distance matrix from SNP alignment.
  1. SNP distance matrix ( Galaxy version 0.8.2+galaxy0) with the following parameters:
    • param-file “FASTA multiple sequence alignment”: the concatenated SNP sites-only sequences; output of Finds SNP sites
Comment

Have a look at the distance matrix to make sure you understand the whole process. Given that we only have 20 samples, you could already spot some samples that are involved in the same transmission chain (samples with a small number of SNPs between them as explained below).

Determine transmission clusters based on a SNP threshold

Now that we have a distance matrix that describes the SNP distance between each pair of samples, we could already describe the transmission clusters based on a SNP threshold, as explained in the respective webinar . If two samples are at a distance below that threshold, we will say that they belong to the same transmission cluster, because they are close enough genetically speaking. Again, we could do this manually, but we are doing bioinformatics, and we want to be able to do the same analysis regardless of whether we are analyzing two or two million samples. Also, note that two samples that are dozens of SNPs apart may belong to the same transmission cluster if there are other samples linking them in between as exemplified in the picture below.

MSA of 5 MTB genomes. Open image in new tab

Figure 4: Example of transmission cluster using 10 SNPs threshold
Question: Very Important Question
  1. In the image above exemplifying a transmission cluster, the distance between samples A and E is 17 SNPs. Being the other pairwise distances in the figure the same, would it be possible that the distance between A and E is different?
  1. The figure used above as an example is a flagrant oversimplification. In the figure not all pairwise distances are represented (for example between sample A and C). Most importantly you have to remember that transmission clusters do not reflect transmission events. In fact it may happen that transmission does not happen within the cluster we are analyzing! For example, when a patient that is not sampled is the source of infection of all the cases in the cluster (may be a superspreading event). You have to consider that, taking into account the same SNP distances, another possible (yet still oversimplified) scenario could be…
MSA of 5 MTB genomes. Open image in new tab

Figure 5: Example of transmission cluster using 10 SNPs threshold

Determine transmission clusters using Rscript

Currently there is not tool in Galaxy to perform the exact task that we need (although we plan to include it!). So far, we can use R and the cluster library through an interactive tool from within Galaxy to achieve what we want. Again, don’t worry about this, programming in R is beyond the scope of this tutorial, but if you have some R or other programming language knowledge, you could also use the code shown in the following as a starting point for your own analyses.

First you will need to open Rstudio within Galaxy. To do this look for Rstudio in the tool panel, click on it and run the interactive tool. An Rstudio dataset will appear in your history, representing an interactive tool run that, once started, will stay in the running state indefinitely. This is the normal behaviour because, indeed, Rstudio is getting executed until we finish using it.

Hands-on: Interactive tool session to generate a cluster report
  1. Note the dataset number (the number in front of and separated with a : from the dataset name) of the SNP distance matrix generated by the last tool run in your history
  2. Once the Rstudio dataset is in running state, click on its galaxy-eye icon and wait for Rstudio to open
  3. Load the SNP distance matrix dataset generated before as an R object

    # Get the SNP distance matrix object from Galaxy
    distance <- gx_get(109)
    
    1. Copy the above code into the Rstudio session
    2. Replace the 109 in parentheses with the dataset number of your SNP distance matrix.
    3. Press Enter on your keyboard to execute the code in Rstudio

    When the data import finishes, the content of the dataset from your Galaxy history will be available in the R object distance.

  4. Run the following R commands

    library(cluster)
    
    # Read the SNP distance matrix
    distance <- read.table(distance, header=T, sep="\t", row.names = 1)
    distance <- as.dist(distance)
    
    # Perform clustering based on SNP distances and a SNP threshold of 10 (h=10)
    clusters <- agnes(distance, diss = TRUE, method = "average")
    clusters <- as.data.frame(cutree(as.hclust(clusters), h = 10))
    colnames(clusters) <- "cluster_id"
    
    ## Discard groups of only one patient by picking clusters with more than one entry
    # Get cluster_ids that are "duplicated" (meaning they have more than one patient)
    clusterIDs <- unique(subset(clusters, duplicated(clusters$cluster_id))$cluster_id)
    # Get samples within these "duplicated" clusters
    clusters <- subset(clusters, cluster_id %in% clusterIDs)
    # Add proper Sample name column
    clusters <- cbind(Sample = rownames(clusters), clusters)
    write.table(clusters, file = "Transmission_clusters.tsv", sep="\t", quote = F, row.names = F)
    
    1. Again, copy the code into Rstudio
    2. Press Enter on your keyboard to excute it in Rstudio

    This code will write the results of a cluster analysis into a file called Transmission_clusters.tsv (the file should appear in the Files tab of the lower-right panel of Rstudio).

  5. Export the new file back to the Galaxy history as a dataset of format tabular

    gx_put("Transmission_clusters.tsv", file_type="tabular")
    
    1. Copy the code into Rstudio
    2. Press Enter on your keyboard to execute it
    3. Wait for the export to finish
  6. Stop Rstudio
    1. Close the Rstudio tab in your browser and go back to Galaxy
    2. Either
      • delete the Rstudio data (still shown in running state) from your history, or
      • in Galaxy’s top menu, go to “User” -> “Active Interactive Tools”, select the Rstudio instance and click on the Stop button at the bottom

The output of the R script, which is now available as a dataset in your history is a table listing only samples that were found to belong to a cluster together with the (arbitrary) ID of their cluster.

Question

How many transmission clusters did we find? How many samples are linked to recent transmission in our dataset?

We have found two transmission clusters with respective IDs 10 and 12. Transmission cluster 10 is composed of two samples, ERR6362484 and ERR5987352, linked by recent transmission and transmission cluster 12 of three samples, ERR6362138, ERR6362156 and ERR6362253.

Question

Let’s assume that we have the isolation dates of samples ERR6362484 and ERR5987352, which belong to the same transmission cluster. Sample ERR6362484 was isolated on January 2021, while sample ERR5987352 was isolated on September 2021. Would you be able to determine who was the infector and who the infectee?

NO

Isolation dates have been used traditionally to define index cases within transmission clusters under the assumption that the most likely scenario is the first isolated sample to be the source of transmission. Today we know that this assumption often leads to misidentification of index cases. Remember: we cannot rule out the possibility that patients within the cluster were infected by an index case that was not sampled.

Read Xu et al. 2019 for more information on this topic.

Analysis Part 2: Combining cluster information with drug-resistance reports

Although we have stressed the fact that clustering cannot be used to delineate transmission events, clustering is very useful to investigate outbreaks and determine which cases are involved in the same transmission chain. We can leverage this information to investigate the relationship between tuberculosis transmission and particular biological or clinical traits.

In this part of the tutorial, we will investigate the emergence and spread of drug resistance based on our clustering analysis.

Get the data

The MTB Variant Analysis tutorial demonstrates the use of TB-profiler to generate a report with determinants of drug resistance of a particular MTB strain, and predict its genotypic drug susceptibility. We have done exactly the same for the 20 samples that we used in the clustering analysis, so we have now the TB-profiler reports for all of them.

Like in part 1, we can use Galaxy’s rule-based uploader functionality to upload the data, build a collection from it and name its elements correctly, all in one step.

Hands-on: Data upload
  1. Import the TB-profiler reports for the samples

    https://zenodo.org/record/6010176/files/ERR1203059.TBprof.txt
    https://zenodo.org/record/6010176/files/ERR181435.TBprof.txt
    https://zenodo.org/record/6010176/files/ERR2659153.TBprof.txt
    https://zenodo.org/record/6010176/files/ERR2704678.TBprof.txt
    https://zenodo.org/record/6010176/files/ERR2704679.TBprof.txt
    https://zenodo.org/record/6010176/files/ERR2704687.TBprof.txt
    https://zenodo.org/record/6010176/files/ERR313115.TBprof.txt
    https://zenodo.org/record/6010176/files/ERR551620.TBprof.txt
    https://zenodo.org/record/6010176/files/ERR5987300.TBprof.txt
    https://zenodo.org/record/6010176/files/ERR5987352.TBprof.txt
    https://zenodo.org/record/6010176/files/ERR6362078.TBprof.txt
    https://zenodo.org/record/6010176/files/ERR6362138.TBprof.txt
    https://zenodo.org/record/6010176/files/ERR6362139.TBprof.txt
    https://zenodo.org/record/6010176/files/ERR6362156.TBprof.txt
    https://zenodo.org/record/6010176/files/ERR6362253.TBprof.txt
    https://zenodo.org/record/6010176/files/ERR6362333.TBprof.txt
    https://zenodo.org/record/6010176/files/ERR6362484.TBprof.txt
    https://zenodo.org/record/6010176/files/ERR6362653.TBprof.txt
    https://zenodo.org/record/6010176/files/SRR13046689.TBprof.txt
    https://zenodo.org/record/6010176/files/SRR998584.TBprof.txt
    
    1. Copy the links above
    2. Open the Upload Manager
    3. In the top row of tabs select Rule-based
    4. Set Upload data as to Collection(s)
    5. Paste the copied links into the text field on the right
    6. Click Build to bring up the Rule Builder dialog
    7. Click on the wrench icon tool next to Rules in the left panel of the window
    8. In the text field, erase the prefilled content and copy/paste the following rule definition into it instead:

      {
        "rules": [
          {
            "type": "add_column_basename",
            "target_column": 0
          },
          {
            "type": "add_column_substr",
            "target_column": 1,
            "length": 11,
            "substr_type": "drop_suffix"
          }
        ],
        "mapping": [
          {
            "type": "url",
            "columns": [
              0
            ]
          },
          {
            "type": "list_identifiers",
            "columns": [
              2
            ],
            "editing": false
          }
        ]
      }
      
    9. Click on Apply
    10. In the bottom row of options, change Type from “Auto-detect” to txt
    11. Set the name of the new collection to TB profiler reports
    12. Click on Upload

Summarize the data

TB-profiler reports are very useful and comprehensive, and we will use them to better investigate drug resistance in our dataset. However, it is always useful to summarize the data on a per-sample basis, on a table, so we can quickly check which strains are, for example, MDR, an which are pan-susceptible. We would like to generate a table like the following:

Sample DR profile
Sample A Sensitive
Sample B Sensitive
Sample C MDR
Sample Z XDR

and merge this with the tabular per-sample cluster report that we have generated in the first part of the tutorial.

If we take a look at a TB profiler report we can see that there is one line describing the genotypic drug susceptibility. Let’s have a look at the first part of the TB-profiler report for sample ERR6362653:


TBProfiler report
=================

The following report has been generated by TBProfiler.

Summary
-------
ID: tbprofiler
Date: Fri Jan 28 13:14:47 2022
Strain: lineage2.2.1
Drug-resistance: MDR

Lineage report
--------------
Lineage	Estimated Fraction	Family	Spoligotype	Rd
lineage2	1.000	East-Asian	Beijing	RD105
lineage2.2	0.996	East-Asian (Beijing)	Beijing-RD207	RD105;RD207
lineage2.2.1	0.999	East-Asian (Beijing)	Beijing-RD181	RD105;RD207;RD181

As you can see, this strain is multi-drug resistant as indicated by (Drug-resistance: MDR) We could then look for this information in each TB-profiler report and generate this table manually, for example in a spreadsheet. However this is not feasible when analyzing hundreds or thousands of samples (and very error-prone!).

A far more scalable approach is to combine Galaxy tools to automate the necessary data processing steps for us.

Select the line containing the drug resistance profile in the report of every sample

grep is used to search patterns of text within text files. Each time grep finds that pattern, it will print as a result the complete line containing such pattern.

If we use grep to search for the pattern “Drug-resistance:”, in a TB-profiler file, we will get as output the complete line, for example Drug-resistance: MDR

Hands-on: Keep only `Drug-resistance:` lines from TB-profiler reports
  1. Select lines that match an expression with the following parameters:
    • param-collection “Select lines from”: the uploaded collection of TB-profiler reports
    • “that”: Matching
    • “the pattern”: Drug-resistance:

Collapse collection into a table with each line prepended with a sample name

Next, we want to turn the collection of single-line datasets we just created into a single two-column table with one column of sample IDs and another one with the corresponding drug resistance status.

Hands-on: Prepend the sample name to the DR profile
  1. Collapse Collection ( Galaxy version 5.1.0) with the following parameters:
    • param-collection “Collection of files to collapse into single dataset”: the collection of single-line drug-resistance reports; output of Select lines
    • “Prepend File name”: Yes
      • “Where to add dataset name”: Same line and each line in dataset

Clean up the table

In this step we will use a simple tool that searches and replaces text to remove the redundant string “Drug-resistance: “ from our table by replacing it with nothing.

Hands-on: Removing redundant content
  1. Replace Text ( Galaxy version 1.1.2) with the following parameters:
    • param-file “File to process”: Single file (output of Collapse Collection tool)
    • In “Replacement”:
      • param-repeat “Insert Replacement”
        • “Find pattern”: Drug-resistance:

          Note the space at the end of the pattern!

        • “Replace with”: leave this field empty

  2. Once the tool has finished running, change the format of the output to tabular

    Though by now the content of the dataset looks like a nice table, Galaxy still thinks it is in general txt format because the original TB-profiler reports were of that format.

    • Click on the galaxy-pencil pencil icon for the dataset to edit its attributes
    • In the central panel, click galaxy-chart-select-data Datatypes tab on the top
    • In the galaxy-chart-select-data Assign Datatype, select tabular from “New type” dropdown
      • Tip: you can start typing the datatype into the field to filter the dropdown menu
    • Click the Save button

Question
  1. How many MDR strains did we find in the dataset?
  2. What does it mean to be Pre-MDR?
  1. Eight MDR strains, three of which are pre-XDR because they have additional resistance to fluoroquinolones. (You can look into details by looking into the TB profiler reports).
  2. As MDR means to be resistant to INH and RIF, pre-MDR means to be either INH-monoresistant or RIF-monoresistant. If we have a look at the respective TB-profiler reports, we can see that these three strains are RIF-monoresistant.

Combine the drug-resistance and the cluster tables

The two tables we have generated in the two parts of the tutorial share a sample column, which we can use now to join the two tables.

Hands-on: Joining tables
  1. Join two files ( Galaxy version 1.1.2) with the following parameters:
    • param-file “1st file”: transmission clusters report; output of Rstudio session
    • “Column to use from 1st file”: Column: 1
    • param-file “2nd File”: final drug-resistance report; output of Replace Text above
    • “Column to use from 1st file”: Column: 1
    • “Output lines appearing in”: Both 1st & 2nd file, plus unpairable lines from 2st file. (-a 2)

      The transmission clusters report only lists the subset of samples that were assigned to a cluster, while the drug-resistance table has a line for every sample. We want to keep all samples from the second table and indicate missing information from the first with - values (see next parameter).

    • “Value to put in unpaired (empty) fields”: -
      • param-repeat “Insert Replacement”
        • “Find pattern”: Drug-resistance:

          Note the space at the end of the pattern!

        • “Replace with”: leave this field empty

Interpretation of results

Now that we have performed a clustering analysis and know which DR mutations each strain carries, we can try to answer a series of questions about how DR may have been emerging and spreading in our study population.

The final combined table you generated and that we are going to base some questions on, should look similar to this one (header added and sample order rearranged for clarity here):

Sample Cluster_id DR profile
ERR1203059 - Sensitive
ERR181435 - Sensitive
ERR2659153 - Sensitive
ERR2704678 - Sensitive
ERR2704679 - Sensitive
ERR2704687 - Sensitive
ERR313115 - Sensitive
ERR551620 - MDR
ERR5987300 - Pre-XDR
ERR6362078 - MDR
ERR6362139 - Pre-MDR
ERR6362333 - Pre-XDR
ERR6362653 - MDR
SRR13046689 - Other
SRR998584 - Sensitive
ERR5987352 10 Pre-MDR
ERR6362484 10 Pre-MDR
ERR6362138 12 MDR
ERR6362156 12 Pre-XDR
ERR6362253 12 MDR
Question

Assuming that we have a very good sampling of the outbreak. Which strains may represent instances of de novo evolution of drug resistance and which ones instances of transmitted (primary) resistance? Remember that you can look at the TB-profiler reports of independent samples for detailed information.

In a simplistic scenario, we could consider clustered strains as instances of transmission and unclustered strains as instances of de novo evolution of DR. Thus, we see that for example there are three MDR strains (ERR551620, ERR6362078, ERR6362653) that are unclustered and therefore may represent cases in which drug resistance evolved independently as response to treatment within the respective patients. However you need to always bear in mind that, although within our population those MDR strains do not seem to be linked to transmission, this does NOT rule out the possibility that some of these patients were infected with an MDR strain somewhere else.

When looking at clustered strains, distinguishing between transmitted and de-novo may be tricky. Note that, for example, for the two RIF-monoresistant strains linked within the same transmission cluster there are, at least, a couple of possible scenarios: one in which a RIF-monoresistant strain evolved in one patient and was transmitted to the other patient afterwards, and one in which both were infected with the same RIF-monoresistant strain from a third patient that we have not sampled. We need to note that, in the first scenario, drug resistance evolved de novo in one patient, and was transmitted to the other patient, whereas in the second scenario drug resistance was transmitted in both cases.

Question
  1. The same principles as explained above apply to the three MDR strains that are within the same transmission cluster. In this case, however, there is one strain that shows clear evidence of de-novo evolution of DR. Do you know which strain and why?
  1. Within this cluster of MDR strains, there is one tagged as Pre-XDR by TB-profiler. If we have a look at the TB profiler report, we can see that this strain carries an additional mutation in gyrA that confers resistance to fluorioquinolones. This is compatible with an scenario in which fluoroquinolone resistance evolved independently within this patient after being infected with the MDR strain.
Question

There is one strain with a DR profile “other”, because it is only resistant to pyrazinamide. This strain is not within a transmission cluster. Therefore, we might conclude that pyrazinamide resistance most likely evolved de-novo in this patient due to antibiotic treatment, but we would be wrong. Do you know why?

The strain is indeed PZA-resistant. And indeed this is strain is NOT linked to transmission within our population. However, if we have a look at the TB-profiler report, we observe that this is a M. bovis strain, which are known to be intrinsically resistant to PZA.

Question
  1. Is it possible to find, in the same transmission cluster, two RIF-monoresistant strains that carry different rpoB mutations?
  2. Is it possible to find, in the same transmission cluster, strains of different MTB sublineages?
  1. Yes, it is possible. In that scenario, the same susceptible strain would recently have been transmitted to two patients, and RIF resistance would have evolved independently in both.
  2. No, by definition. Remember that clustering is based on a threshold that we set of genetic distance measured in SNPs. We want to cluster samples that are genetically so similar that we can consider them as the same genotype, that is to say, as the same strain. Two different sublineages, by definition, do not belong to the same genotype and will have a distance in SNPs between them well beyond any SNP threshold we could use.

Conclusion

You have learned how to perform a clustering analysis to identify patients that are linked by events of recent transmission. Clustering analysis is very useful in outbreak investigation and can also be used to describe the emergence and spread of drug-resistance within a population. You have also learned, however, that interpreting clustering results requires careful considerations, given the limitations of the methodology. Clustering analysis is better complemented with phylogenetic analysis, which may help overcome some of these limitations.

In the following tutorial you will perform a phylogenetic analysis of these same 20 strains.

Bonus

You might have noticed that one of the strains analyzed presents thousands of differences (SNPs) to the reference genome, standing out from the rest of strains. This strain is a M. canettii strain, that was actually not part of the outbreak investigated. However we decided to include it here. Why? Let’s find out in the follow-up tutorial Tree thinking for tuberculosis evolution and epidemiology.