Annotating VCF Files

The main purpose of Jannovar is the annotation of all variants in a VCF file. That is, for each annotation, predict the results for all transcripts that can be afflicted by the change. Depending on the configuration, the one effect that is most pathogenic, or all, are written out.

This is done using the annotate-vcf command. You pass the path to an annotation database and one VCF file that should be annotated. The resulting annotated file is written to the file specified by -o or --output-vcf.

For example, for annotating the small.vcf file (see small.vcf) in the examples directory:

# java -jar jannovar-cli-0.19.jar annotate-vcf \
-d data/hg19_refseq.ser -i examples/small.vcf -o examples/small.jv.vcf
[...]
# ls examples/small.jv.vcf
small.jv.vcf

The first three variant lines of examples/small.jv.vcf will look as follows.

1       866511  rs60722469      C       CCCCT   258.62  .       ANN=CCCCT|coding_transcript_intron_variant|LOW|SAMD11|148398|transcript|NM_152486.2|Coding|4/13|c.305+42_305+43insCCCT|p.(%3D)|386/18841|306/2046|102/682||     GT:AD:DP:GQ:PL  1/1:6,5:11:14.79:300,15,0
1       879317  rs7523549       C       T       150.77  .       ANN=T|missense_variant|MODERATE|SAMD11|148398|transcript|XM_005244727.1|Coding|9/9|c.799C>T|p.(Arg267Cys)|1155/19962|799/1188|267/396|| GT:AD:DP:GQ:PL  0/1:14,7:21:99:181,0,367
1       879482  .       G       C       484.52  .       ANN=C|missense_variant|MODERATE|SAMD11|148398|transcript|XM_005244727.1|Coding|9/9|c.964G>C|p.(Asp322His)|1320/19962|964/1188|322/396|| GT:AD:DP:GQ:PL  0/1:28,20:48:99:515,0,794

Disabling 3’ Shifting

The HGVS Nomenclature for the description fo sequence variants requires that variants are to be shifted towards the 3’ end of transcripts in case of ambiguities. This is in partial conflict with the VCF standard which requires all variant calls to be shifted towards the 3’ end of the genome. In the case that Jannovar shifted the variants towards the 3’ end of the transcript, it will generate a INFO_REALIGN_3_PRIME information in the message field of the annotation (ANN field).

To comply with the VCF annotation standard, Jannovar also implements the --no-3-prime-shifting option. Using this switch suppresses this shifting and the variant will be kept as given in the VCF file. Here is an example of using this command line option:

# java -jar jannovar-cli-0.19.jar annotate --no-3-prime-shifting \
-d data/hg19_refseq.ser -i examples/small.vcf -o examples/small.jv.vcf

The Show-All Option

By default, Jannovar will only write out one most pathogenic variant as predicted. You can use the --show-all option to write out all functional annotations:

# java -jar jannovar-cli-0.19.jar annotate-vcf --show-all \
-d data/hg19_refseq.ser -i examples/small.vcf -o examples/small.jv.vcf

For example, the first line of small.jv.vcf will look as follows and contain multiple effects and HGVS annotations.

1       866511  rs60722469      C       CCCCT   258.62  .       ANN=CCCCT|coding_transcript_intron_variant|LOW|SAMD11|148398|transcript|NM_152486.2|Coding|4/13|c.305+42_305+43insCCCT|p.(%3D)|386/18841|306/2046|102/682||,CCCCT|coding_transcript_intron_variant|LOW|SAMD11|148398|transcript|XM_005244723.1|Coding|4/12|c.305+42_305+43insCCCT|p.(%3D)|662/19962|306/2145|102/715||,CCCCT|coding_transcript_intron_variant|LOW|SAMD11|148398|transcript|XM_005244724.1|Coding|4/13|c.305+42_305+43insCCCT|p.(%3D)|662/19962|306/2001|102/667||,CCCCT|coding_transcript_intron_variant|LOW|SAMD11|148398|transcript|XM_005244725.1|Coding|4/13|c.305+42_305+43insCCCT|p.(%3D)|662/19962|306/1998|102/666||,CCCCT|coding_transcript_intron_variant|LOW|SAMD11|148398|transcript|XM_005244726.1|Coding|4/11|c.305+42_305+43insCCCT|p.(%3D)|662/19962|306/1719|102/573||,CCCCT|coding_transcript_intron_variant|LOW|SAMD11|148398|transcript|XM_005244727.1|Coding|4/8|c.305+42_305+43insCCCT|p.(%3D)|662/19962|306/1188|102/396||,CCCCT|non_coding_transcript_intron_variant|LOW|SAMD11|148398|transcript|XR_241028.1|Noncoding|4/12|n.661+42_661+43insCCCT||662/19541||||,CCCCT|non_coding_transcript_intron_variant|LOW|SAMD11|148398|transcript|XR_241029.1|Noncoding|4/12|n.661+42_661+43insCCCT||662/19541||||     GT:AD:DP:GQ:PL  1/1:6,5:11:14.79:300,15,0