NGS QC Toolkit: A Toolkit for Quality Control of Next Generation Sequencing Data

Next generation sequencing (NGS) technologies provide a high-throughput means to generate large amount of sequence data. However, quality control (QC) of sequence data generated from these technologies is extremely important for meaningful downstream analysis. Further, highly efficient and fast processing tools are required to handle the large volume of datasets. Here, we have developed an application, NGS QC Toolkit, for quality check and filtering of high-quality data. This toolkit is a standalone and open source application freely available at http://www.nipgr.res.in/ngsqctoolkit.html. All the tools in the application have been implemented in Perl programming language. The toolkit is comprised of user-friendly tools for QC of sequencing data generated using Roche 454 and Illumina platforms, and additional tools to aid QC (sequence format converter and trimming tools) and analysis (statistics tools). A variety of options have been provided to facilitate the QC at user-defined parameters. The toolkit is expected to be very useful for the QC of NGS data to facilitate better downstream analysis.下一代测序（Next Generation Sequencing，NGS）技术可依托高通量手段生成海量序列数据。然而，针对此类技术产出的序列数据开展质量控制（Quality Control，QC），对于获取有意义的下游分析结果至关重要。此外，处理大规模数据集亟需高效快捷的分析工具。本研究开发了一款名为NGS QC Toolkit的应用程序，用于高质量序列数据的质量核查与过滤。该工具包为独立开源程序，可通过http://www.nipgr.res.in/ngsqctoolkit.html免费获取。程序内所有工具均采用Perl编程语言开发。该工具包包含多款操作便捷的工具，可针对罗氏454（Roche 454）与Illumina测序平台生成的序列数据开展质量控制，同时附带辅助质量控制的工具（如序列格式转换工具、序列修剪工具）与分析工具（如统计工具）。程序提供了丰富的可调参数选项，支持用户自定义参数开展质量控制。该工具包有望在NGS数据质量控制环节发挥重要作用，助力获得更优质的下游分析结果。