8d5759442b9034d07823c7c57ad4c53f7fc2d6bc
max
  Sat Jul 25 18:25:07 2026 -0700
sfariSparkExomes: update track description

diff --git src/hg/makeDb/trackDb/human/sfariSparkExomes.html src/hg/makeDb/trackDb/human/sfariSparkExomes.html
index 5a710f64574..1040d98c369 100644
--- src/hg/makeDb/trackDb/human/sfariSparkExomes.html
+++ src/hg/makeDb/trackDb/human/sfariSparkExomes.html
@@ -1,142 +1,153 @@
 <h2>Description</h2>
 <p>
 The <a href="https://sparkforautism.org/" target="_blank">Simons Foundation Autism Research
 Initiative (SFARI)</a> recruited a large cohort of families with autistic children who provided
 DNA samples and phenotypes. 54,558 families, parents and their children were sequenced, a total
 of 142,357 individuals with whole-exome (WES) and 12,519 with whole-genome sequencing (WGS).
 The data contains 32,559 trios and 8,895 quads (one sibling without autism), and 824 twins.
 </p>
 
 <p>
 The same frequencies shown here are also available publicly on the
 <a href="https://genomes.sfari.org/" target="_blank">SFARI Genome Browser</a>.
 See (SPARK et al, Neuron 2018) for details.
 </p>
 
 <h3>Phenotype-stratified counts</h3>
 <p>
 In addition to the overall allele count (AC), allele number (AN), and allele
 frequency (AF), each variant record carries counts split by autism status
 (the <tt>asd</tt> column of the SPARK individual registration file):
 </p>
 <ul>
   <li><tt>AC_AUT</tt>, <tt>AN_AUT</tt>, <tt>AF_AUT</tt> &mdash; individuals
       coded as autistic (<tt>asd=TRUE</tt>).</li>
   <li><tt>AC_NON_AUT</tt>, <tt>AN_NON_AUT</tt>, <tt>AF_NON_AUT</tt> &mdash;
       individuals coded as non-autistic (<tt>asd=FALSE</tt>); these are
       mostly parents and unaffected siblings of the probands.</li>
 </ul>
 <p>
 A small minority of samples have a blank <tt>asd</tt> value and so contribute
 only to the overall AC/AN/AF, not to either group total.
 </p>
 
 <h2>Data Access</h2>
 <p>
 Due to license restrictions, the data for this track cannot be downloaded from the UCSC
 Genome Browser. The Table Browser, Data Integrator, and download server are not available
 for this track.
 </p>
 <p>
 Allele frequencies can also be displayed on the
 <a href="https://genomes.sfari.org/" target="_blank">SFARI Genome Browser</a>.
 Full CRAMs and VCFs with genotypes are available from
 <a href="https://base.sfari.org/" target="_blank">SFARI Base</a>.
 They require a data access request, which is usually reviewed quickly. More information is
 available in the
 <a href="https://cohorts-cdn.simonsfoundation.org/spark/researcher_packets/SPARK_SFARI_Researcher_Welcome_Packet.pdf"
 target="_blank">SPARK Welcome Packet</a>.
 </p>
 
 <h2>Methods</h2>
 
 <p>The genome browser track project was approved by the Simons Foundation under request
-number 14584.1. WES and WGS data were downloaded from
-<a href="https://base.sfari.org/" target="_blank">SFARI Base</a>.
-pVCFs were downloaded, anonymized with a script using bcftools and its &quot;fill-tags&quot; plugin and
-normalized. There was no minimum allele frequency cutoff.
-The ASD-status sample-group file derived from the SPARK <tt>individuals_registration</tt>
-TSV was passed to fill-tags via its <tt>-S</tt> option, which adds the per-group
-<tt>AC_AUT</tt>/<tt>AN_AUT</tt>/<tt>AF_AUT</tt> and <tt>AC_NON_AUT</tt>/<tt>AN_NON_AUT</tt>/<tt>AF_NON_AUT</tt>
-tags alongside the overall AC/AN/AF.</p>
+number 14584.1. The multi-sample project VCFs (pVCFs) for both the WES and WGS releases were
+downloaded from <a href="https://base.sfari.org/" target="_blank">SFARI Base</a> using Globus.
+No minimum allele frequency cutoff was applied.</p>
+
+<p>
+Because the genotype-level pVCFs cannot be redistributed, they were reduced to anonymous,
+sites-only VCFs carrying only the overall allele count (AC), allele number (AN) and frequency
+(AF), plus the autism-status counts described above, with the bcftools
+<a href="http://samtools.github.io/bcftools/howtos/plugin.fill-tags.html" target="_blank">fill-tags</a>
+plugin (its <tt>-S</tt> option produces the ASD/non-ASD splits), then normalized. The variants
+are also annotated with predicted protein consequences using
+<a href="http://samtools.github.io/bcftools/bcftools.html#csq" target="_blank">bcftools csq</a>
+against Ensembl gene models; that annotation is displayed in the combined frequency tracks of
+this collection. The exact commands for both steps are in the makeDoc file linked below.</p>
 
-<p>The methods are documented as follows by SFARI:</p>
+<p>The sequencing and variant-calling methods are documented as follows by SFARI:</p>
 <ul>
   <li>
     <b>WGS</b>:
     This release consists of sequence and variant call data for 12,519
     unique individuals, of which 12,517 (99.98%) have available genome-wide
     SNP genotype data. Sequencing and genotyping of all samples in this
     release was performed at New York Genome Center (NYGC). DNA from saliva
     samples were extracted and prepared with PCR-free methods and sequenced
     with paired-end sequencing of 150 bases on the Illumina NovaSeq 6000
     system. Alignment of reads to the human reference genome version
     GRCh38, duplicate read marking, and Base Quality Score Recalibration
     (BQSR) were performed by New York Genome Center (NYGC). Whole-genome
     sequencing data were processed using a standardized, functionally
     equivalent CCDG pipeline with alignment to the GRCh38DH (1000 Genomes)
     reference using BWA-MEM v0.7.15 (deterministic settings, no -M, use of
     .alt contigs), Picard-equivalent duplicate marking (Picard &ge;2.4.1 or
     equivalent), no indel realignment, and base quality score recalibration
     with GATK (dbSNP138, Mills and 1000G gold-standard indels, known
     indels). Final outputs were stored as lossless CRAM files with
     complete SAM-compliant read-group annotations and mandatory 4-bin
     base-quality compression (Q2&mdash;6, 10, 20, 30), and all implementations
     were validated for functional equivalence across centers before use.
     Variant Calling was performed using DeepVariant. See
     <a href="https://github.com/CCDG/Pipeline-Standardization/blob/master/PipelineStandard.md"
     target="_blank">CCDG pipeline details</a>.
   </li>
   <li>
     <b>WES</b>: This release contains
     sequence data for 142,357 individuals and genotyping data for
     141,368 individuals. DNA was sequenced from saliva for all
     samples and all participants consented to having their genetic
     data shared by Regeneron. Exomes for all samples were sequenced with
     short-read, paired-end sequencing of 150 bases on Illumina
     NovaSeq 6000 machines using S2/S4 flow cells. Sequencing and
     genotyping was performed across nine batches (WES1 through
     WES9) at the Regeneron Genetics Center (RGC) and integrated
     together for this data release. All sequencing batches were
     processed using the same DNA extraction methods and sequencing
     machines, however two different exome capture panels were used,
     as described below. Genotyping was performed using a SNP
     genotyping array for WES1 through WES4 and using
     &quot;genotyping-by-sequencing&quot; (GxS) for WES5 through WES9. The
     first four sequencing batches were sequenced at Regeneron using
     custom NEB/Kapa reagents with the IDT (Integrated DNA
     Technologies) xGen capture platform, including custom exome
     capture regions. Samples starting with batch WES5 were
     sequenced using the Twist Bioscience Human
     Comprehensive Exome panel, combined with spike-ins for
     sequencing genotyping sites (see Genotyping Methods), the full
     mitochondrial genome, and coverage boosted at selected sites
     for assaying clonal hematopoiesis of indeterminate potential
     (CHIP). SFARI performed SNV/indel calling via DeepVariant and
     GATK to generate gVCFs, pairwise relatedness inferred using
     PLINK v1.9 IBD estimates from common SNPs (AF &ge; 0.01, dbSNP
     v151) with &ge;15% relatedness flagged, and comprehensive
     individual- and family-level quality control executed using the
     internal GenomeCheckMate pipeline to exclude samples based on
     contamination (&ge;5%), insufficient coverage (&lt;20x in &lt;80% of
     targets), sex discordance, pedigree/IBD inconsistencies,
     unregistered relationships, unexpected duplicates, or excess
     relatedness, after which QC-passing individuals (selecting the
     most recent passing sample per person) were retained for
     variant calling and joint genotyping.
     </li>
 </ul>
 <p>
-The <a href="https://github.com/ucscGenomeBrowser/kent/blob/master/src/hg/makeDb/doc/hg38/varFreqs.txt" target="_blank">makeDoc file</a> documents how all source files of the varFreqs track were converted.
-For some tracks, python scripts were necessary and are also available from <a href="https://github.com/ucscGenomeBrowser/kent/blob/master/src/hg/makeDb/scripts/varFreqs" target="_blank">GitHub</a>.
+The complete, runnable command history for downloading, counting and annotating the SFARI data,
+alongside every other cohort in this collection, is in the
+<a href="https://github.com/ucscGenomeBrowser/kent/blob/master/src/hg/makeDb/doc/hg38/varFreqs.txt" target="_blank">makeDoc file</a>;
+search it for &quot;SFARI SPARK&quot;. The scripts it calls, including
+<tt>sparkMergeVcfAddCounts.sh</tt> (allele counts) and <tt>mergeAndAnnotate.sh</tt> (merge plus
+consequence annotation), are in the
+<a href="https://github.com/ucscGenomeBrowser/kent/tree/master/src/hg/makeDb/scripts/varFreqs" target="_blank">varFreqs scripts directory</a>.
 </p>
 
 <h2>References</h2>
 <p>
 SPARK Consortium. Electronic address: <A HREF="mailto:&#112;f&#101;&#108;&#105;&#99;&#105;&#97;&#110;o&#64;&#115;&#105;&#109;&#111;&#110;&#115;f&#111;&#117;&#110;&#100;a&#116;&#105;&#111;&#110;.&#111;&#114;g">&#112;f&#101;&#108;&#105;&#99;&#105;&#97;&#110;o&#64;&#115;&#105;&#109;&#111;&#110;&#115;f&#111;&#117;&#110;&#100;a&#116;&#105;&#111;&#110;.&#111;&#114;g</A><!-- above address is pfeliciano at simonsfoundation.org -->, SPARK Consortium.
 <a href="https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0896-6273(18)30018-7" target="_blank">
 SPARK: A US Cohort of 50,000 Families to Accelerate Autism Research</a>.
 <em>Neuron</em>. 2018 Feb 7;97(3):488-493.
 PMID: <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29420931" target="_blank">29420931</a>; PMC: <a
 href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7444276/" target="_blank">PMC7444276</a>
 </p>