FA-NIVA: A Nextflow framework for automated analysis of Nanopore based long-read sequencing data for genetic analysis in Fanconi anemia

Abstract

MotivationFanconi anemia (FA) is a rare disease mainly caused by biallelic pathogenic variants, including structural variants such as large deletions and insertions in FA genes. Currently, variant detection is based on short-read sequencing and probe-based approaches. However, determining the exact genomic breakpoint or achieving allelic discrimination remains challenging. Nanopore-based long-read sequencing enables a comprehensive detection of FA variants, but a unified bioinformatic analysis platform for these data is missing. ResultsWe present FA-NIVA (Fanconi anemia - Nanopore Indel and Variant Analysis), an automated and adaptable analysis workflow tailored for Nanopore-based long-read sequencing data in FA genetic analysis. FA-NIVA integrates state-of-the-art tools to comprehensively detect both single nucleotide variants (SNVs) and structural variants (SVs). Our analysis platform enhances genotyping accuracy for biallelic variants by a joint SNV-SV based phasing in FA associated genes. Built within the Nextflow ecosystem and powered by containerized Docker images, FA-NIVA ensures reproducibility, flexibility, scalability and transparency across different computing environments. Together, FA-NIVA provides a robust end-to-end solution for the automated analysis of SVs and SNVs and high-resolution phasing analysis in FA genes, enabling an accurate and efficient pipeline for genetic analysis. AvailabilityFA-NIVA is available on GitHub at: https://github.com/UKWgenommedizin/FA-NIVA.