BioRuby

The BioRuby project was first started in 2000 by Toshiaki Katayama as a Ruby implementation of similar bioinformatics packages such as BioPerl and BioPython. The initial release of version 0.1 has been frequently updated by contributors both informally and at organised “hackathon” events, with the most recent release of version 1.4.3.0001 in May 2013.[5]

In June 2005, BioRuby was funded by IPA as an Exploratory Software Project,[6] culminating with the release of version 1.0.0 in February 2006.[7]

BioRuby has been the focus of a number of Google Summer of Code projects, including;

• 2009: Implementing phyloXML support in BioRuby
• 2010: Ruby 1.9.2 support of BioRuby
• 2010: Implementation of algorithm to infer gene duplications in BioRuby
• 2011: Represent bio-objects and related informatio with images
• 2012: Extend bio-alignment plug-in with Multiple Alignment Format -MAF- parser

• 0.7.0 December 18, 2005 (438 KB)
• 1.0.0 February 26, 2006 (528 KB)
• 1.4.3.0001 May 24, 2013 (1.42 MB)

The above list of releases is abbreviated; the full list can be found here.

macOS has Ruby and RubyGems installed by default and for Unix/Linux installation of RubyGems is recommended.

If Ruby and RubyGems are installed, BioRuby can be installed using this command via the terminal;

% sudo gem install bio

If you need to install from the source code distribution, obtain the latest package from the archive and in the bioruby source directory, run the following commands;

% su 
# ruby setup.rb

Installation via RubyGems is highly recommended; this requires Ruby and RubyGems be installed, then the following command run at the command prompt;

> gem install bio

BioRuby can be accessed via the terminal, Ruby IDEs or via a BioRubyOnRails implementation. Instructions for the installation and use of BioRubyOnRails can be found at bioruby.open-bio.org/wiki/BioRubyOnRails.

Parsing a string into Bio::Sequence object.

#!/usr/bin/env ruby
require 'bio'

# create a DNA sequence object from a String
dna = Bio::Sequence::NA.new("atcggtcggctta")

# create an RNA sequence object from a String
rna = Bio::Sequence::NA.new("auugccuacauaggc")

# create a Protein sequence from a String
aa = Bio::Sequence::AA.new("AGFAVENDSA")
 
# you can check if the sequence contains illegal characters
# that is not an accepted IUB character for that symbol
# (should prepare a Bio::Sequence::AA#illegal_symbols method also)
puts dna.illegal_bases

# translate and concatenate a DNA sequence to Protein sequence
newseq = aa + dna.translate
puts newseq # => "AGFAVENDSAIGRL"

This an example that showcases the simplicity of BioRuby. It does not require any method call to convert the sequence object to a string.

Parsing a sequence object into a string.

#!/usr/bin/env ruby
 
# you can use Bio::Sequence object as a String object to print, seamlessly
dna = Bio::Sequence::NA.new("atgc")
puts dna        # => "atgc"
str = dna.to_s
puts str        # => "atgc"

There is no need to convert DNA sequence to RNA sequence or vice versa before its translation in BioRuby. You can simply call a translate method for Bio::Sequence::NA object.

#!/usr/bin/env ruby

require 'bio'

# create a DNA sequence
seq = Bio::Sequence::NA.new("atggccattgaatga")
 
# translate to protein
prot = seq.translate
 
# prove that it worked
puts seq   # => "atggccattgaatga"
puts prot  # => "MAIE*"

The general translation example shows how to use the translate method of Bio::Sequence::NA object but most of what goes on is hidden behind the convenience method. If you only want to translate a single codon into a single amino acid you get exposed to a bit more of the gory detail but you also get a chance to figure out more of what is going on under the hood.

#!/usr/bin/env ruby
 
require 'bio'
 
# make a 'codon'
codon = Bio::Sequence::NA.new("uug")
 
# you can translate the codon as described in the previous section.
puts codon.translate  # => "L"

Another way to do this is the following

#!/usr/bin/env ruby
 
require 'bio'
 
# make a 'codon'
codon = Bio::Sequence::NA.new("uug")
 
# select the standard codon table
codon_table = Bio::CodonTable[1]
 
# You need to convert RNA codon to DNA alphabets because the
# CodonTable in BioRuby is implemented as a static Hash with keys
# expressed in DNA alphabets (not RNA alphabets).
codon2 = codon.dna
 
# get the representation of that codon and translate to amino acid.
amino_acid = codon_table[codon2]
puts amino_acid        # => "L"

To print out any Bio::Sequence object in FASTA format, All you need is to call is "puts objectName.is_fasta()"

#!/usr/bin/env ruby
 
require 'bio'
 
# Generates a sample 100bp sequence.
seq1 = Bio::Sequence::NA.new("aatgacccgt" * 10)
 
# Naming this sequence as "testseq" and print in FASTA format
# (folded by 60 chars per line).
puts seq1.to_fasta("testseq", 60)

This program opens FASTA format file for reading and iterates on each sequence in the file.

#!/usr/bin/env ruby
 
require 'bio'
 
file = Bio::FastaFormat.open(ARGV.shift)
file.each do |entry|
# do something on each fasta sequence entry
end

This program automatically detects and reads FASTA format files given as its arguments.

#!/usr/bin/env ruby
 
require 'bio'
 
Bio::FlatFile.auto(ARGF) do |ff|
ff.each do |entry|
  # do something on each fasta sequence entry
end
end

Similar but specify FASTA format explicitly.

#!/usr/bin/env ruby
 
require 'bio'
 
Bio::FlatFile.open(Bio::FastaFormat, ARGV[0]) do |ff|
  ff.each do |entry|
    # do something on each fasta sequence entry
  end
end

See more syntax examples on SampleCodes

The below classes have been identified by a group of major code contributors as major classes.[11]

These classes allow you to natively store complicated biological data structure effectively.[11]

Accesses online biological databases and reads from common file-formats.

These classes allow for easy access to commonly used bioinformatics tools.

A full list of classes and modules can be found at bioruby.org/rdoc/.

• bioruby.org mailing list
• contributors
• GitHub

• Bioinformatics.org
• Japan Open Bioinformatics Research Group

• The Open Bioinformatics Foundation
• BioPerl
• BioPython
• BioJava
• BioJS
• BioLisp
• BioDAS

• Saaien Tist - http://saaientist.blogspot.com.au/
• "aac".translate # => "N" - http://bioruby.g.hatena.ne.jp/nakao_mitsuteru/
• BioRelated - http://biorelated.wordpress.com/category/bioruby/