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Mercury_Prep_N_Batch

Quick Facts

Workflow Type Applicable Kingdom Last Known Changes Command-line Compatibility Workflow Level
Public Data Sharing Viral PHB v2.3.0 Yes Set-level

Mercury_Prep_N_Batch_PHB

Mercury prepares and formats metadata and sequencing files located in Google Cloud Platform (GCP) buckets for submission to national & international databases, currently NCBI & GISAID. Mercury was initially developed to ingest read, assembly, and metadata files associated with SARS-CoV-2 amplicon reads from clinical samples and format that data for submission per the Public Health Alliance for Genomic Epidemiology (PH4GE)'s SARS-CoV-2 Contextual Data Specifications.

Currently, Mercury supports submission preparation for SARS-CoV-2, mpox, and influenza. These organisms have different metadata requirements, and are submitted to different repositories; the following table lists the repositories for each organism & what is supported in Mercury:

BankIt (NCBI) BioSample (NCBI) GenBank (NCBI) GISAID SRA (NCBI)
"flu"
"mpox"
"sars-cov-2"

Mercury expects data tables made with TheiaCoV

Mercury was designed to work with metadata tables that were partially created after running the TheiaCoV workflows. If you are using a different pipeline, please ensure that the metadata table is formatted correctly. See this file for the hard-coded list of all of the different metadata fields expected for each organism.

Metadata Formatters

To help users collect all required metadata, we have created the following Excel spreadsheets that can help you collect the necessary metadata and allow for easy upload of this metadata into your Terra data tables:

For flu

Flu Metadata Formatter

Flu uses the same metadata formatter as the Terra_2_NCBI Pathogen BioSample package.

If neither strain nor isolate are found in the Terra data table, Mercury will automatically generate an isolate, using the following format ABRicate flu type / State / sample name / year (ABRicate flu subtype). Example: A/California/Sample-01/2024 (H1N1)

The ABRicate flu type and subtype (abricate_flu_type and abricate_flu_subtype columns) are extracted from your table, and are required to generate the isolate field if it is not provided.

For mpox

Mpox Metadata Formatter

For sars-cov-2

SARS-CoV-2 Metadata Formatter

Usage on Terra

Usage on Terra

A note on the using_clearlabs_data & using_reads_dehosted optional input parameters

The using_clearlabs_data and using_reads_dehosted arguments change the default values for the read1_column_nameassembly_fasta_column_name, and assembly_mean_coverage_column_name metadata columns. The default values are shown in the table below in addition to what they are changed to depending on what arguments are used.

Variable Default Value with using_clearlabs_data with using_reads_dehosted with both  using_clearlabs_data and using_reads_dehosted
read1_column_name "read1_dehosted" "clearlabs_fastq_gz" "reads_dehosted" "reads_dehosted"
assembly_fasta_column_name "assembly_fasta" "clearlabs_fasta" "assembly_fasta" "clearlabs_fasta"
assembly_mean_coverage_column_name "assembly_mean_coverage" "clearlabs_sequencing_depth" "assembly_mean_coverage" "clearlabs_sequencing_depth"

Inputs

Use the sample table for the terra_table_name input

Make sure your entry for terra_table_name is for the sample table! While the root entity needs to be the set table, the input value for terra_table_name should be the sample table.

This workflow runs on the set-level.

Terra Task Name Variable Type Description Default Value Terra Status
mercury_prep_n_batch gcp_bucket_uri String Google bucket where your SRA reads will be temporarily stored before transferring to SRA. Example: "gs://theiagen_sra_transfer" Required
mercury_prep_n_batch sample_names Array[String] The samples you want to submit Required
mercury_prep_n_batch terra_project_name String The name of your Terra project. You can find this information in the URL of the webpage of your Terra dashboard. For example, if your URL contains #workspaces/example/my_workspace/ then your project name is example Required
mercury_prep_n_batch terra_table_name String The name of the Terra table where your samples can be found. Do not include the entity: prefix, the _id suffix, or the _set_id suffix, just the name of the sample-level data table as listed in the sidebar on lefthand side of the Terra Data tab. Required
mercury_prep_n_batch terra_workspace_name String The name of your Terra workspace where your samples can be found. For example, if your URL contains #workspaces/example/my_workspace/ then your project name is my_workspace Required
download_terra_table cpu Int Number of CPUs to allocate to the task 1 Optional
download_terra_table disk_size Int Amount of storage (in GB) to allocate to the task 10 Optional
download_terra_table docker String The Docker container to use for the task us-docker.pkg.dev/general-theiagen/theiagen/terra-tools:2023-06-21 Optional
download_terra_table memory Int Amount of memory/RAM (in GB) to allocate to the task 2 Optional
mercury cpu Int Number of CPUs to allocate to the task 2 Optional
mercury disk_size Int Amount of storage (in GB) to allocate to the task 100 Optional
mercury docker String The Docker container to use for the task us-docker.pkg.dev/general-theiagen/theiagen/mercury:1.0.9 Optional
mercury memory Int Amount of memory/RAM (in GB) to allocate to the task 8 Optional
mercury number_N_threshold Int Only for "sars-cov-2" submissions; used to filter out any samples that contain more than the indicated number of Ns in the assembly file 5000 Optional
mercury single_end Boolean Set to true if your data is single-end; this ensures that a read2 column is not included in the metadata FALSE Optional
mercury skip_county Boolean Use if your Terra table contains a county column that you do not want to include in your submission. FALSE Optional
mercury usa_territory Boolean If true, the "state" column will be used in place of the "country" column. For example, if "state" is Puerto Rico, then the GISAID virus name will be hCoV-19/Puerto Rico/<name>/<year>. The NCBI geo_loc_name will be "USA: Puerto Rico". This optional Boolean variable should only be used with clear understanding of what it does. FALSE Optional
mercury using_clearlabs_data Boolean When set to true will change read1_dehostedclearlabs_fastq_gz; assembly_fastaclearlabs_fasta; assembly_mean_coverageclearlabs_sequencing_depth FALSE Optional
mercury using_reads_dehosted Boolean When set to true will only change read1_dehosted → reads_dehosted. Takes priority over the replacement for read1_dehosted made with the using_clearlabs_data Boolean input FALSE Optional
mercury vadr_alert_limit Int Only for "sars-cov-2" submissions; used to filter out any samples that contain more than the indicated number of vadr alerts 0 Optional
mercury_prep_n_batch authors_sbt File Only for "mpox" submissions; a file that contains author information. This file can be created here: Optional
mercury_prep_n_batch organism String The organism that you want submission prepare for — each organism requires different metadata fields so please ensure this field is accurate. Options: "flu", "mpox"" or "sars-cov-2" sars-cov-2 Optional
mercury_prep_n_batch output_name String Free text prefix for all output files mercury Optional
mercury_prep_n_batch skip_ncbi Boolean Set to true if you only want to prepare GISAID submission files FALSE Optional
table2asn cpu Int Number of CPUs to allocate to the task 1 Optional
table2asn disk_size Int Amount of storage (in GB) to allocate to the task 100 Optional
table2asn docker String The Docker container to use for the task us-docker.pkg.dev/general-theiagen/staphb/ncbi-table2asn:1.26.678 Optional
table2asn memory Int Amount of memory/RAM (in GB) to allocate to the task 1 Optional
trim_genbank_fastas cpu Int Number of CPUs to allocate to the task 1 Optional
trim_genbank_fastas disk_size Int Amount of storage (in GB) to allocate to the task 100 Optional
trim_genbank_fastas docker String The Docker container to use for the task us-docker.pkg.dev/general-theiagen/staphb/vadr:1.3 Optional
trim_genbank_fastas max_length Int Only for "sars-cov-2" submissions; the maximum genome length for trimming terminal ambiguous nucleotides. If your sample's genome is higher than this value, the workflow will error/fail. 30000 Optional
trim_genbank_fastas memory Int Amount of memory/RAM (in GB) to allocate to the task 2 Optional
trim_genbank_fastas min_length Int Only for "sars-cov-2" submissions; the minimum genome length for trimming terminal ambiguous nucleotides. If your sample's genome is lower than this value, the workflow will error/fail. 50 Optional
version_capture docker String The Docker container to use for the task "us-docker.pkg.dev/general-theiagen/theiagen/alpine-plus-bash:3.20.0" Optional
version_capture timezone String Set the time zone to get an accurate date of analysis (uses UTC by default) Optional

Outputs

Variable Type Description
bankit_sqn_to_email File Only for mpox submission: the sqn file that you will use to submit mpox assembly files to NCBI via email
biosample_metadata File BioSample metadata TSV file for upload to NCBI
excluded_samples File A file that contains the names and reasons why a sample was excluded from submission. For SARS-CoV-2, there are two sections: First, a section for any samples that failed to meet pre-determined quality thresholds (number_N and vadr_num_alert). Second, a section that includes a table that describes any missing required metadata for each sample. This table has the sample name for rows and any columns that have missing metadata as headers. If a sample is missing a piece of required metadata, the corresponding cell will be blank. However, if a different sample does have metadata for that column, the associated value will appear in the corresponding cell. For flu and mpox, only the second section described above exists. Please see the example below for more details.
genbank_fasta File Only for SARS-CoV-2 submission: GenBank fasta file for upload
genbank_metadata File Only for SARS-CoV-2 submission: GenBank metadata for upload
gisaid_fasta File Only for mpox and SARS-CoV-2 submission: GISAID fasta file for upload
gisaid_metadata File Only for mpox and SARS-CoV-2 submission: GISAID metadata for upload
mercury_prep_n_batch_analysis_date String Date analysis was run
mercury_prep_n_batch_version String Version of the PHB repository that hosts this workflow
mercury_script_version String Version of the Mercury tool that was used in this workflow
sra_metadata File SRA metadata TSV file for upload
An example excluded_samples.tsv file
An example excluded_samples.tsv file

Due to the nature of tsv files, it may be easier to download and open this file in Excel.

example_excluded_samples.tsv

Samples excluded for quality thresholds:
sample_name message 
sample2 VADR skipped due to poor assembly
sample3 VADR number alerts too high: 3 greater than limit of 0
sample4 Number of Ns was too high: 10000 greater than limit of 5000

Samples excluded for missing required metadata (will have empty values in indicated columns):
tablename_id    organism    country library_layout
sample5         paired
sample6 SARS-CoV-2  USA

This example informs the user that samples 2-4 were excluded for quality reasons (the exact reason is listed in the message column), and that samples 5 and 6 were excluded because they were missing required metadata fields (sample5 was missing the organism and country fields, and sample6 was missing the library_layout field).

Usage outside of Terra

This tool can also be used on the command-line. Please see the Mercury GitHub for more information on how to run Mercury with a Docker image or in your local command-line environment.