Extract, transform and load GDC data onto UCSC Xena.
Table of Contents
- Dependencies
- Installation
- Basic usage with command line tools
- Advanced usage with XenaDataset and its subclasses
- GDC ETL settings
- Documentation
Specific versions mentioned below have been tested. Eariler versions may still work but not guaranteed.
Python 2.7, 3.5
This pipeline has been tested with python 2.7, 3.5, 3.6 and 3.7. It may also work with other python 3 versions since it was originally designed to be single-source Python 2/3 compatible.
Requests v1.2.3
Numpy v1.15.0
Pandas v0.23.2
Jinja2 v2.10.1: used for generating metadata JSON.
lxml v4.2.0: used for parsing TCGA phenotype data
xlrd v1.1.0: used for reading TARGET phenotype data
First clone the repository from GitHub by running
git clone https://github.com/yunhailuo/xena-GDC-ETL.git
. Now,cd
intoxena-GDC-ETL
directory and install the package using pip:pip install .
If you are developing the package, you can use
pip
's edit mode for installation:pip install -e .
.You can also directly use
pip
to install the package by running:pip install git https://github.com/yunhailuo/xena-GDC-ETL
Dependencies can be installed either before or after cloning this repository. You can install them by running
pip install -r requirements.txt
.In general,
gdc.py
contains functionalities related to GDC API, which requires no other modules in this package;xena_dataset.py
contains core functionalities for importing data from GDC to Xena and needs thegdc.py
module in this package;gdc2xena.py
defines a command line tool which requires bothgdc.py
module andxena_dataset.py
module in this package;gdc_check_new.py
defines a command line tool which requiresthegdc.py
module in this package.
Import selected project(s) and selected type(s) of data from GDC to Xena
xge etl [-h] [-r ROOT] [-p PROJECTS [PROJECTS ...] | -P NOT_PROJECTS [NOT_PROJECTS ...]] [-t DATATYPE [DATATYPE ...] | -T NOT_DATATYPE [NOT_DATATYPE ...]]
This tool will perform a full import of dataset(s) into the root directory (specified by the
-r
option) with a default directory tree. In general, a full import has 3 steps: downloading raw data, making Xena matrix from raw data and generating matrix associated metadata. Data from each step will be saved to corresponding directories, whose structure is like this:root └── projects ├── "Raw_Data" │ └── xena_dtype │ ├── data1 │ ├── data2 │ ├── ... │ └── dataN └── "Xena_Matrices" ├── projects.xena_dtype(1).tsv ├── projects.xena_dtype(1).tsv.json ├── projects.xena_dtype(2).tsv ├── projects.xena_dtype(2).tsv.json ├── ... ├── projects.xena_dtype(N).tsv └── projects.xena_dtype(N).tsv.json
A dataset is defined by its project and data type. Projects of interest are provided through
-p
or-P
option, and data types of interest are provided through the-t
or-T
option. Multiple inputs separated by whitespace are allowed and will be treated separately with all possible combinations. Valid projects should be valid project_id on GDC. Valid data types includes (without quotation marks): 'htseq_counts', 'htseq_fpkm', 'htseq_fpkm-uq', 'mirna', 'masked_cnv', 'muse_snv', 'mutect2_snv', 'somaticsniper_snv', 'varscan2_snv', 'phenotype', and 'survival'. Upper case options (-P
or-T
) are mutually exclusive with corresponding lower case options, and they are used to define datasets of interest by excluding selections from either all projects on GDC or all supported data types. For example, the following command line imports 3 types of RNA-seq data for all but FM-AD projects from GDC to /home/user/xena_root:mkdir -p /home/user/xena_root xge etl -P FM-AD -t htseq_counts htseq_fpkm htseq_fpkm-uq
Notes:
- Root directory must be existing
- Please check the next section for advanced usage with XenaDataset and its subclasses, if you want to customize the importing process with selected (rather than all possible) combinations of your input projects and data types or selected (rather than all 3) importing step(s).
Generate metadata of a xena matrix
xge metadata --project TCGA-BRCA --datatype htseq_counts --matrix path/to/matrix.tsv --release 10
This tool generates metadata for a xena matrix. For the shown example, metadata is generated for the matrix
matrix.tsv
for release10
, projectTCGA-BRCA
and datatypehtsep_counts
. Note that, metadata JSON file is saved at the same directory as thematrix.tsv
file.
Check against a list of updated files for affected dataset(s)
xge gdc_check_new [-h] URL
This tool takes in a file (either a URL or a local file readable by
pandas.read_csv
) of table and read one of its columns named as "New File UUID". It then checks all file UUIDs in this table on GDC and summarize all their associated project(s), data type(s) and analysis workflow type(s). Such tables are usually provided in GDC's data release note. With the summarized info, you can design specific imports to just update datasets which are updated on GDC. For example, the following command:xge gdc_check_new https://docs.gdc.cancer.gov/Data/Release_Notes/DR9.0_files_swap.txt.gz
should give you:
analysis.workflow_type cases.project.project_id data_type HTSeq - FPKM TARGET-NBL Gene Expression Quantification HTSeq - FPKM-UQ TARGET-NBL Gene Expression Quantification HTSeq - Counts TARGET-NBL Gene Expression Quantification
Shows the current version of xena_gdc_etl
xge --version
Check equality of two xena matrices
xge xena-eql path/to/matrix1.tsv path/to/matrix2.tsv
This tool takes path to two xena matrices and output if they are equal or not.
Merge xena matrices
xge merge-xena -f path/to/matrix1.tsv path/to/matrix2.tsv -t htseq_counts -o path/to/output -n new_name.tsv -c TCGA-BRCA
This tool merges xena matrices and outputs the merged matrix. For the given example the tool will merge
matrix1.tsv
andmatrix2.tsv
matrices and store the merged matrix inpath/to/output
directory with the namenew_name.tsv
. Note that, had the argument-n
not been specified, the merged matrix would have been saved asTCGA-BRCA.htseq_counts.tsv
.
The
XenaDataset
classThough this is not an abstract class, it is designed as a generalized class representing one Xena dataset and its importing process. For doing an import of GDC data, use its subclasses, which have preloaded with some default settings, might be simpler.
A Xena dataset is defined by its study project (cohort) and the type of data in this dataset. A typical importing process has the following 3 steps:
- Download raw data from the source.
The
download_map
property defines a dict of raw data to be downloaded, with the key being the URL and the value being the path, including the filename, for saving corresponding downloaded file. Thedownload
method will read thedownload_map
and perform the downloading, creating non-existing directories as needed. After downloading all files, a list of paths for downloaded files will be recorded in theraw_data_list
property. Thedownload
method needs only a validdownload_map
. It will return the object itself, therefore can be chained withtransform
.- Transform raw data into valid Xena matrix.
One assumption for data transformation is that there might be multiple raw data (in the
raw_data_list
) supporting the single Xena matrix in a dataset. Therefore, thetransform
method will first merge data and then process merged matrix as needed. It will open the file one by one accordingly (by extension), and read the file object and transform its data with a function defined byread_raw
. The list of transformed single data will be merged and processed by a function defined byraws2matrix
, which gives the finalized Xena matrix. Thetransform
method requires a valid list of raw data, besidesread_raw
andraws2matrix
. A valid list of raw data can be either explicitly defined byraw_data_list
or can be derived fromraw_data_dir
with all files underraw_data_dir
being treated as raw data. It will return the object itself, therefore can be chained withmetadata
.- Generate metadata for the new Xena matrix.
Metadata for Xena matrix is a JSON file rendered by the
metadata
method withmetadata_vars
(dict) through Jinja2 frommetadata_template
. This JSON file will be saved under the same directory as the matrix, with a filename being the matrix name plus the '.json' postfix. Themetadata
method requires an existing file of Xena matrix.- Pass an argument for
root_dir
during instantiation or set theroot_dir
property explicitly after instantiation. - Downloaded raw data will be saved under
raw_data_dir
. - Newly transformed Xena matrix will be saved as
matrix
undermatrix_dir
. The directory path inmatrix
has the priority overmatrix_dir
. By default, Xena matrix will be saved under the "matrix_dir" as "<projects>.<xena_dtype>.tsv". - Metadata will always have the specific pattern of name and be together with
matrix
(i.e. no way to change this behavior).
Build GDC importing pipelines with
GDCOmicset
,GDCPhenoset
orGDCSurvivalset
classesGDCOmicset
,GDCPhenoset
andGDCSurvivalset
are subclasses ofXenaDataset
and are preloaded with settings for importing GDC genomic data, TCGA phenotype data on GDC, TARGET phenotype data on GDC and GDC's survival data respecitively. These settings can be customized by setting corresponding properties described below. For more details, please check the next section and the documentation.The script for
gdc2xena.py
command line is a good example for basic usage of these classes. Similar toXenaDataset
, a GDC dataset is defined byprojects
, which is one or a list of valid GDC "project_id". ForGDCOmicset
, a dataset should also be defined with one of the supportedxena_dtype
(find out with the class methodGDCOmicset.get_supported_dtype()
). Thexena_dtype
is critical for aGDCOmicset
object selecting correct default settings. ForGDCPhenoset
andGDCSurvivalset
, data type are self-explanatory and cannot be changed. Therefore, you can instantiate these classes like this:from xena_dataset import GDCOmicset, GDCPhenoset, GDCSurvivalset gdc_omic_cohort = GDCOmicset('TCGA-BRCA', 'htsep_counts') # Won't check if the ID is of TCGA program or not. tcga_pheno_cohort = GDCPhenoset('TCGA-BRCA') # Won't check if the ID is of TARGET program or not. target_pheno_cohort = GDCPhenoset('TARGET-NBL') gdc_survival_cohort = GDCSurvivalset('TCGA-BRCA')
With such a dataset object, it is fine to call
download
,transform
and/ormetadata
method(s). These methods will use preloaded settings and save files underroot_dir
accordingly. You are free to call/chain some but not all 3 methods; just keep in mind the pre-requisites for each method and set related properties properly. Aside from directory related settings described above, you can change some default importing settings through the following properties.- Customize
GDCOmicset
Attributes
Usage
Type and Format1
Default settings
gdc_filter
Used for deriving default
download_map
as the GDC search filters.dict
: the key is 1 GDC available file field and the value is either a string or a list, meaning the value of the file field matches a string or number in (a list)Check GDC download settings for details.
gdc_prefix
Used for deriving default
download_map
as the GDC search fields.str
: 1 GDC available file field whose value will be the prefix of the filename of corresponding downloaded file.Check GDC download settings for details.
download_map
Used by the
download
method for downloading GDC raw data supporting this dataset.dict
: the key is download URL and the value is the desired path for saving the downloaded file.Download URLs are in the pattern of "https://api.gdc.cancer.gov/data/<FILE UUID>", and paths are in the pattern of "<
raw_data_dir
>/<value of gdc_prefix>.<GDC file UUID>.<file extension>".read_raw
Used by the
transform
method when reading a single GDC raw data.callable
: takes only 1 file object as its argument and returns an arbitrary result which will be put in a list and passed on toraws2matrix
.Check GDC genomic transform settings for details
raws2matrix
Used by the
transform
method and responsible for both merging multiple GDC raw data into one Xena matrix and processing new Xena matrix as needed.callable
: takes only 1 list ofread_raw
returns as its argument and returns an object (usually a pandas DataFrame) which has ato_csv
method for saving as a file.Check GDC genomic transform settings for details
metadata_template
Used by the
metadata
method for rendering metadata by Jinja2.jinja2.environment.Template
orstr
: ajinja2.environment.Template
used directly by Jinja2; if it's a string, it is a path to the template file which will be silently read and converted tojinja2.environment.Template
.metadata_vars
Used by the
metadata
method for rendering metadata by Jinja2.dict
: used directly by Jinja2 which should match variables inmetadata_template
.{ 'project_id': <``projects``>, 'date': <the time of last modification of ``matrix``>, 'gdc_release': <``gdc_release``>, 'xena_cohort': <Xena specific cohort name for TCGA data or GDC project_id for TARGET data, with (for both) "GDC " prefix> }
* The first element of the "url" field in metadata will be "gdc_release" URL, and the second will be specific URL for raw data file if there is only 1 raw data file for this dataset; or it will be just "https://api.gdc.cancer.gov/data/".
gdc_release
Used by the
metadata
method for rendering metadata, showing the GDC data release of this dataset.str
: an URL pointing to corresponding GDC Data Release Note.Current data release version when the
gdc_release
is being used/called, queried through "https://api.gdc.cancer.gov/status".1. GDC API Available File Fields: https://docs.gdc.cancer.gov/API/Users_Guide/Appendix_A_Available_Fields/#file-fields
Customize
GDCPhenoset
for TCGA projectsTCGA phenotype data for Xena includes both clinical data and biospecimen data, as detailed below. Downloading and transformation of clinical data and biospecimen data are in fact delegated by two independent
GDCOmicset
object respecitively. Corresponding subdatasets can be accessed throughclin_dataset
andbio_dataset
attributes and hence can be customized as mentioned above. Because of such complexity of TCGA phenotype data, thedownload
andtransform
methods are coded specifically and overrode corresponding methods of the base class,XenaDataset
. Customization for downloading and matrix transformation is very limited and should be done in the following steps:- Instantiate a
GDCPhenoset
; - Instantiate and customize one or two
GDCOmicset
objects for clinical data and/or biospecimen data as needed; - Assign customized
GDCOmicset
objects to corresponding attributes,clin_dataset
andbio_dataset
; - Call desired method(s) (
download
and/ortransform
).
Customize
download
stepThis step can be customized only through customized
clin_dataset
andbio_dataset
, since the whole downloading process is delegated by these two GDCOmicset objects.Customize
transform
stepThe first part of
transform
is delegated bytransform
methods ofclin_dataset
andbio_dataset
. Therefore, the only way to customized this process is to customizeclin_dataset
andbio_dataset
. How the two matrices are then merged into one Xena phenotype matrix is hard coded and cannot be customized. It is worth noting that if you want to calltransfrom
but skip the downloading step, you will need to defineclin_dataset
andbio_dataset
before callingtransform
.Customize
metadata
stepDifferent from
download
andtransform
, there is no special settings for themetadata
method ofGDCPhenoset
. Therefore, similar to that ofGDCOmicset
, this step can be customized throughmetadata_template
,metadata_vars
andgdc_release
properties. And to call just themetadata
method, an existingmatrix
is enough.
- Instantiate a
Customize
GDCPhenoset
for TARGET projectsTARGET phenotype data for Xena contains only the clinical data (no biospecimen data), as detailed below. The importing process is quite similar to that of a
GDCOmicset
. You can customizeTARGETPhenoset
withdownload_map
,read_raw
,raws2matrix
,metadata_template
,metadata_vars
andgdc_release
in the same way as that of GDCOmicset.Customize
GDCSurvivalset
GDC data supporting Xena survival matrix does not come any GDC files. It comes from the "analysis/survival" endpoint of GDC API. Therefore, the
download
andtransform
methods are re-designed, overriding those of the base class,XenaDataset
. Aside from redefiningdownload
andtransform
methods, there is no simple way to customizedownload
andtransform
steps. You can still calltransform
withoutdownload
by just defining a valid list of raw data withraw_data_list
orraw_data_dir
. However, only this first file in the list will be read and used.Different from
download
andtransform
, there is no special settings for themetadata
method ofGDCSurvivalset
. Therefore, similar to that ofGDCOmicset
, this step can be customized throughmetadata_template
,metadata_vars
andgdc_release
properties. To call just themetadata
method, an existingmatrix
is enough.
- Customize
Settings for downloading/getting raw data (files) from GDC
xena_dtype
GDC API endpoint
GDC data filter
File count/Level
GDC file field for filename prefix
data_type
analysis.workflow_type
htseq_counts
data
Gene Expression Quantification
HTSeq - Counts
1/Sample vial
cases.samples.submitter_id
htseq_fpkm
data
Gene Expression Quantification
HTSeq - FPKM
1/Sample vial
cases.samples.submitter_id
htseq_fpkm-uq
data
Gene Expression Quantification
HTSeq - FPKM-UQ
1/Sample vial
cases.samples.submitter_id
mirna
data
miRNA Expression Quantification
BCGSC miRNA Profiling
1/Sample vial
cases.samples.submitter_id
mirna_isoform
data
Isoform Expression Quantification
BCGSC miRNA Profiling
1/Sample vial
cases.samples.submitter_id
cnv
data
Copy Number Segment
DNAcopy
1/Sample vial
cases.samples.submitter_id
masked_cnv
data
Masked Copy Number Segment
DNAcopy
1/Sample vial
cases.samples.submitter_id
muse_snv
data
Masked Somatic Mutation
MuSE Variant Aggregation and Masking
1/Project
submitter_id
mutect2_snv
data
Masked Somatic Mutation
MuTect2 Variant Aggregation and Masking
1/Project
submitter_id
somaticsniper_snv
data
Masked Somatic Mutation
SomaticSniper Variant Aggregation and Masking
1/Project
submitter_id
varscan2_snv
data
Masked Somatic Mutation
VarScan2 Variant Aggregation and Masking
1/Project
submitter_id
clinical
data
Clinical Supplement
N/A
0 or 1/Case
cases.submitter_id
biospecimen
data
Biospecimen Supplement
N/A
1/Case
cases.submitter_id
survival
analysis/survival
N/A (filtered by just the "project.project_id")
1 Record/Case (Non-file)
N/A (filename will be "<projects>.GDC_survival.tsv")
Settings for transform "Omic" data into Xena matrix
xena_dtype
Raw data has header?
Select columns (in order)
Row index
Skip rows start with?
Merge into matrix as
Process matrix
htseq_counts
No
1, 2 [Ensembl_ID, Counts]
Ensembl_ID
_
1 new column based on index
- Average if there are multiple data from the same sample vial;
- log2(counts 1)
htseq_fpkm
No
1, 2 [Ensembl_ID, Counts]
Ensembl_ID
_
1 new column based on index
- Average if there are multiple data from the same sample vial;
- log2(counts 1)
htseq_fpkm-uq
No
1, 2 [Ensembl_ID, Counts]
Ensembl_ID
_
1 new column based on index
- Average if there are multiple data from the same sample vial;
- log2(counts 1)
mirna
Yes
1, 3 [miRNA_ID, RPM]
miRNA_ID
N/A
1 new column based on index
- Average if there are multiple data from the same sample vial;
- log2(counts 1)
mirna_isoform
Yes
2, 4 [isoform_coords, RPM]
isoform_coords
N/A
1 new column based on index
- Average if there are multiple data from the same sample vial;
- log2(counts 1)
cnv
Yes
2, 3, 4, 6 [Chromosome, Start, End, Segment_Mean]
sample
N/A
New rows based on column name
Rename columns as:
{ 'Chromosome': 'Chrom', 'Segment_Mean': 'value' }
masked_cnv
Yes
1, 2, 3, 5 [Chromosome, Start, End, Segment_Mean]
sample
N/A
New rows based on column name
Rename columns as:
{ 'Chromosome': 'Chrom', 'Segment_Mean': 'value' }
muse_snv mutect2_snv somaticsniper_snv varscan2_snv
Yes
13, 37, 5, 6, 7, 40, 42, 52, 1, 11, 16, 111 [Tumor_Seq_Allele2, HGVSp_Short, Chromosome, Start_Position, End_Position, t_depth, t_alt_count, Consequence, Hugo_Symbol, Reference_Allele, Tumor_Sample_Barcode, FILTER]
N/A
#
N/A
Calculate variant allele frequency (dna_vaf) by "t_alt_count"/"t_depth";
Delete "t_alt_count" and "t_depth" columns;
Trim "Tumor_Sample_Barcode" to sample vial level;
Rename columns as:
{ 'Hugo_Symbol': 'gene', 'Chromosome': 'chrom', 'Start_Position': 'start', 'End_Position': 'end', 'Reference_Allele': 'ref', 'Tumor_Seq_Allele2': 'alt', 'Tumor_Sample_Barcode': 'sampleid', 'HGVSp_Short': 'Amino_Acid_Change', 'Consequence': 'effect', 'FILTER': 'filter' }
Settings for transform phenotype data into Xena matrix
GDC program
GDC raw data
Raw data format
Single data file transformation
Merge and matrix processing
TCGA
Clinical Supplement and Biospecimen Supplement
BCR XML
For clincial data, info will be extracted and organized into a per patient based pandas DataFrame. It will have a column named "bcr_patient_barcode" which will be used to join with biospecimen matrix later on.
The XML scheme are quite different for different projects. Therefore, to get as much info as possible while still keeping things clear, texts, if any, from all elements that have non-element children are extracted first. After such a "dirty" extraction, two clean ups will be done:
- For "race" info, it will be converted into a comma separated list of races, in case there are more than one entry in <clin_shared:race_list> in the clinical XML.
- When there is one or more follow ups, the most recent follow up will be find out. All info in the most recent follow up will be used to replace/add to previously extracted matrix.
For biospecimen data, there is one coherent XML scheme for all TCGA projects. There are two parts to be considered for biospecimen data: per sample/sample specific data and patient data (which is common for all samples). Info from both parts will be extracted and finally organized into a per sample based matrix, having a column named "bcr_patient_barcode", which will be used to join with clinical matrxi later on. In general, info extraction has the following 3 steps:
- Common patient data will be extracted first, including texts from direct children of <admin:admin> and <bio:patient>. A new field of "primary_diagnosis" will be added by mapping "disease_code" to TCGA study name.
- Samples from <bio:patient/bio:samples> will be processed and have comman patient data attached one by one. Non-empty texts from direct children of sample will be extracted, i.e. details from nodes like <bio:portions> will be dropped. Samples having type code 10 are dropped.
- A column of "bcr_patient_barcode" from <bio:patient/shared:bcr_patient_barcode> will be added to the final biospecimen matrix (same for the whole table).
- Multiple clinical data are concatenated directly by row with all empty columns removed.
- Multiple biospecimen data are concatenated directly by row with all empty columns removed.
- Merged clinical matrix and merged biospecimen matrix are further merged on "bcr_patient_barcode". For conflict/overlapping columns, non-empty value from the clinical data has the priority.
TARGET
Clinical Supplement only
XLSX
The excel file is converted to a pandas DataFrame.
- Multiple DataFrames will be concatenated directly by row, and arriage return and line feed are replaced by a single space.
- Clinical data is per case(patient) based, while Xena phenotype matrix is per sample based. All related samples for each case/patient will be identified and phenotype data will be mapped to corresponding samples.
Settings for transform survival data into Xena matrix
GDC survival data is returned as JSON from GDC API. During the downloading process, it can and will be converted directly to pandas DataFrame and saved as tab delimited table. During transformation, columns in "primary" Xena survival matrix can be mapped directly (without further processing/calculation) from the raw table like this:
Primary Xena column
GDC source column
_EVENT
censored
_TIME_TO_EVENT
time
_OS_IND
censored
_OS
time
_PATIENT
submitter_id
GDC survival data is per case(patient) based and so is "primary" Xena survival matrix, while Xena survival matrix is per sample based. All related samples for each case/patient will be identified and survival data will be mapped to corresponding samples.
Check documentation for GDC module and Xena Dataset module here.