More than 21,000 analysis results from UM6P join the African DSI DataBank

The African DSI DataBank now holds more than 21,000 derived analysis results from Mohammed VI Polytechnic University (UM6P) in Morocco. Prof. Achraf El Allali and his team published 21,266 results from UM6P’s DataBank node, and the federation has brought them to the Continental Hub, where anyone can browse and search them.

The collection has two parts:

1. 15,384 annotated variant files (VCF), produced and annotated with the AfroTB pipeline (Mycobacterium tuberculosis isolates; bcftools 1.16 and SnpEff 4.3t), and hosted at AfroTB (https://bioinformatics.um6p.ma/AfroTB/), one for each sequencing run and named by its run accession. Each records where a sample’s genome differs from the reference and what those differences are predicted to do.
2. 5,882 simple sequence repeat (SSR) discovery results, produced with MegaSSR v3.0.0 (https://bioinformatics.um6p.ma/MegaSSR/), one for each genome assembly and named by its assembly accession. SSRs, or microsatellites, are widely used as markers in genetic diversity, population and breeding studies.

Figure 1: Derived analysis results from UM6P now on the African DSI DataBank. 21,266 derived analysis results from Mohammed VI Polytechnic University (UM6P), Morocco: 15,384 annotated variant files (VCF) from the AfroTB pipeline and 5,882 SSR discovery results from MegaSSR v3.0.0, shared from UM6P's DataBank node through federation to the Continental Hub.

These are among the first large collections to reach the DataBank through federation, and they show how the platform is meant to work. UM6P’s node holds the files and remains their custodian. The Continental Hub shows each result with the tool and version that produced it and its source, and links back to the node where the file is served. Nothing was moved or copied by hand: the node shares its results, and the Hub picks them up. The institution that did the work keeps its data and its decisions about access, and gets the credit.

Derived results like these are a large part of what the DataBank exists for. Raw sequencing data is valuable, but the analyses built on it, such as variant calls, annotations and markers, take time, computing power and expertise to produce. Making them findable alongside the genomes, proteins and other records already in the DataBank means researchers can build on work that has already been done rather than repeat it, and it makes the scale of African analytical work visible.

To explore the collection, open Derived Analysis on the Continental Hub. You can filter by analysis type (Annotated VCF or ssr_discovery) and search by accession to find the result for a particular sequencing run or genome assembly. Each result shows its tool, version and origin node, together with the benefit-sharing notice that applies to it.

We thank Achraf El Allali and the UM6P Bioinformatics Laboratory team for this contribution, and for working closely with us on the federation along the way. Their feedback, including on handling large batches of results, has already made the platform better for every node.

Institutions that run a DataBank node can share their own derived results in the same way, through the node’s upload form, a CSV list, or files already on their server. To find out how, see Contribute data on the DataBank, or contact us.

Browse the results: hub.africandsidatabank.africa/derived-analysis