windowCounts {csaw} | R Documentation

## Count reads overlapping each window

### Description

Count the number of extended reads overlapping a sliding window at spaced positions across the genome.

### Usage

    windowCounts(bam.files, spacing=50, width=spacing, ext=100, shift=0,
    	filter=10, bin=FALSE, param=readParam(), BPPARAM=SerialParam())

### Arguments

`bam.files` | A character vector containing paths to sorted and indexed BAM files.
`spacing` | An integer scalar specifying the distance between consecutive windows.
`width` | An integer scalar specifying the width of the window.
`ext` | An integer scalar or a list of two integer scalars/vectors, containing the average length(s) of the sequenced fragments in each library.
`shift` | An integer scalar specifying how much the start of each window should be shifted to the left.
`filter` | An integer scalar for the minimum count sum across libraries for each window.
`bin` | A logical scalar indicating whether binning should be performed.
`param` | A readParam object containing read extraction parameters.
`BPPARAM` | A BiocParallelParam specifying how parallelization is to be performed across files.

### Value

A RangedSummarizedExperiment object is returned containing one integer matrix. Each entry of the matrix contains the count for each library (column) at each window (row). The coordinates of each window are stored as the `rowRanges`. The total number of reads in each library are stored as `totals` in the `colData`, along with the read (`rlen`) and extension lengths (`ext`) for each library. Other window counting parameters (e.g., `spacing`, `width`, `param`) are stored in the `metadata`.

### Defining the sliding windows

A window is defined as a genomic interval of size equal to `width`. The value of `width` can be interpreted as the width of the contact area between the DNA and protein. In practical terms, it determines the spatial resolution of the analysis. Larger windows count reads over a larger region which results in larger counts. This results in greater detection power at the cost of resolution.

By default, the first window on a chromosome starts at base position 1. This can be shifted to the left by specifying an appropriate value for `shift`. New windows are defined by sliding the current window to the right by the specified `spacing`. Increasing `spacing` will reduce the frequency at which counts are extracted from the genome. This results in some loss of resolution but it may be necessary when machine memory is limited.

If `bin` is set, settings are internally adjusted so that all reads are counted into non-overlapping adjacent bins of size `width`. Specifically, `spacing` is set to `width` and `filter` is capped at a maximum value of 1 (empty bins can be retained with `filter=0`). Only the 5' end of each read or the midpoint of each fragment (for paired-end data) is used in counting.

### Read extraction and counting

Read extraction from the BAM files is governed by the `param` argument. This specifies whether reads are to be read in single- or paired-end mode, whether to apply a threshold to the mapping quality, and so on – see `?readParam` for details. The strandedness of the output `rowRanges` is set based on the strand(s) from which the reads are extracted and counted. This is determined by the value of the `forward` slot in the input `param` object.

Fragments are inferred from reads by directional extension in single-end data (see below) or by identifying proper pairs in paired-end data (see `readParam` and `getPESizes` for more details). The number of fragments overlapping the window for each library is then counted for each window position. Windows will be removed if the count sum across all libraries is below `filter`. This reduces the memory footprint of the output by not returning empty or near-empty windows, which are usually uninteresting anyway.

### Elaborating on directional extension

For single-end reads, directional extension is performed whereby each read is extended from its 3' end to the average fragment length, i.e., `ext`. This obtains a rough estimate of the interval of the fragment from which the read was derived. It is particularly useful for TF data, where extension specifically increases the coverage of peaks that exhibit strand bimodality. No extension is performed if `ext` is set to `NA`, such that the read length is used as the fragment length in that library.

If libraries have different fragment lengths, this can be accommodated by supplying a list of 2 elements to `ext`. The first element (named `init.ext` here, for convenience) should be an integer vector specifying the extension length for each library. The second element (`final.ext`) should be an integer scalar specifying the final fragment length. All reads are directionally extended by `init.ext`, and the resulting fragment is resized to `final.ext` by shrinking or expanding from the fragment midpoint. For a bimodal peak, scaling effectively aligns the subpeaks on a given strand across all libraries to a common location. This removes the most obvious differences in widths.

If any element of `init.ext` is `NA`, no extension is performed for the corresponding library. If `final.ext` is set to `NA`, no rescaling is performed from the library-specific fragment lengths. Values of `init.ext` are stored as the `ext` field in the `colData` of the output object, while `final.ext` is stored in the `metadata`.

### Comments on ext for paired-end data

Directional extension is not performed for paired-end data, so the values in `ext` are not used directly. Hwoever, rescaling can still be performed to standardize fragment lengths across libraries by resizing each fragment from its midpoint. This will use the second element of `ext` as `final.ext`, if `ext` is specified as a list of length 2.

On a similar note, some downstream functions will use the extension length in the output `colData` as the average fragment length. Thus, to maintain compatibility, the `ext` field in `colData` is set to the average of the inferred fragment lengths for valid read pairs. These values will not be used in `windowCounts`, but instead, in functions like `getWidths`.

### Author(s)

Aaron Lun

### See Also

`correlateReads`, `readParam`, `getPESizes`

### Examples

    # A low filter is only used here as the examples have very few reads.
    bamFiles <- system.file("exdata", c("rep1.bam", "rep2.bam"), package="csaw")
    windowCounts(bamFiles, filter=1)
    windowCounts(bamFiles, width=100, filter=1)

    # Multiple extension lengths.
    windowCounts(bamFiles, ext=list(c(50, 100), NA), filter=1)
    windowCounts(bamFiles, ext=list(c(50, 100), 80), filter=1)

    # Loading PE data.
    bamFile <- system.file("exdata", "pet.bam", package="csaw")
    windowCounts(bamFile, param=readParam(pe="both"), filter=1)
    windowCounts(bamFile, param=readParam(pe="first"), filter=1)
    windowCounts(bamFile, param=readParam(max.frag=100, pe="both"), filter=1)
    windowCounts(bamFile, param=readParam(max.frag=100, pe="both", restrict="chrA"), filter=1)

[Package csaw version 1.22.1 Index]