Repository for using DMS data from Welsh et al. to estimate phenotypes of circulating H3N2 influenza strains

This repository has all the code used to estimate phenotypes of circulating H3N2 influenza strains from Welsh et al. in the form of a Nextstrain build (forked from the core seasonal-flu workflow).

Summary of strains used in the analysis

We analyzed a set of 1,478 H3N2 influenza strains obtained from a publicly available Nextstrain phylogenetic tree that samples strains from the past 12 years (https://nextstrain.org/flu/seasonal/h3n2/ha/12y). This tree is regularly updated. We analyzed the strains from the tree that was available on October 19th, 2023. We obtained the names of these strains by downloading the ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS (TSV) file accessible via the DOWNLOAD DATA button. The contents of this file are in profiles/dmsa-phenotype/sequences/nextstrain_flu_seasonal_h3n2_ha_12y_acknowledgements_and_accession_numbers.tsv, along with an added column (accession_ha) that gives the GISAID accession number of each HA sequence. For each strain, we obtained the associated HA gene nucleotide sequence and metedata from the GISAID database (https://gisaid.org/), though we did not include these sequences and data in the repository as they cannot be publicly shared.

Code and input data for estimating escape scores in a Nextstrain build

For those unfamiliar with Nextstrain, we recommend checking out the Nextstrain documentation before reading further.

In short, we extended this multi-build workflow with additional functionality for using deep mutational scanning (DMS) data to estimate the phenotype (e.g. antibody escape scores) of each the strains in the output tree. The snakemake configuration for the workflow is unchanged, except you may now specify collections of DMS experiments under the dmsa-phenotype-collections: key. Each collection is defined by a nested list of key-value pairs defining the name and relavent parameters for a set of related experiments. Once these have been defined, the individual workflows (i.e. values under the build keys) in the config must then specify the names (i.e. keys defined under dmsa-phenotype-collections:) of the experimental collections you wish to be included in the Auspice JSON's resulting from the completed workflow.

All code and input data that we added are in the directory profiles/dmsa-phenotype/, including the following directories and files:

• dmsa-pred/: a sub-repository with Python scripts used to estimate phenotypes from DMS data.
  • dmsa_rules.smk contains the snakemake rules that we added to the pipeline.
• configs/nextstrain-public-h3n2-ha-12y.yaml: defines all input parameters, including the name of the reference strain used in the DMS experiment, which is set to be A/Hong Kong/45/2019. Below, we show how to run the analysis using this configuration file, which depends on the following input files:
• data/:
  • 12y_sequences.fasta.xz: a FASTA file with HA gene nucleotide sequences for each strain in the analysis. We cannot make this file public because the sequences are from GISAID, but we do provide GISAID accession numbers that can be used to obtain these sequences (see above).
  • 12y_metadata.tsv.xz: a TSV file with metadata for each strain in the analysis. As above, we cannot make these data public, but they can be obtained using the above GISAID accession numbers.
  • filtered_data/: for each serum sample, this directory contains a CSV file reporting the DMS-measured effects of mutations on escape from that serum. These files have been filtered to only include entries for mutations that were seen in both of the replicate DMS libraries and in at least three distinct variants (averaged across libraries) in the DMS data for that serum sample.
  • allow_unmeasured_aa_subs_at_these_sites.txt: a file listing the set of sites that are used when determining which strains to mask in the analysis. If a strain has one or more mutations that were not measured by DMS or that were not observed in at least two DMS libraries in an average of at least three variants per library, the strain is masked, unless the mutation in question occurs at a site listed in this file. We deemed that these sites are unlikely to affect escape by virtue of not being close to other sites that were found to affect escape.

Executing the Nextstrain workflow

The steps we've followed to run this are as follows:

First, clone the repository and its submodules:

git clone [email protected]:matsengrp/seasonal-flu-dmsa.git --recurse-submodules

Next, install the nextstrain CLI tools outlined here

Once installed, activate the native conda environment:

conda activate ~/.nextstrain/runtimes/conda/env

Then, assuming you have the necessary input files, and they are placed under the parent directory like so:

profiles/dmsa-phenotype/data
├── 12y_metadata.tsv.xz
├── 12y_sequences.fasta.xz
├── allow_unmeasured_aa_subs_at_these_sites.txt
└── filtered_data
    ├── 150C_avg.csv
    ├── 18C_avg.csv
    ├── 197C_avg.csv
    ├── 199C_avg.csv
    ├── 1C04-5G04_avg.csv
    ...
    ...

You can run the workflow with the following command:

snakemake --configfile profiles/dmsa-phenotype/configs/nexstrain-public-h3n2-ha-12y.yaml --use-conda --cores 4

Output of the Nextstrain workflow

Once the worflow has completed, you should have produced:

• The auspice/ directory contains the JSONs for tree visualization with auspice.
• The builds/ and all intermediate files generated by the workflow, respectively. For instance, the files with escape scores would then be found in builds/flu_seasonal_h4n2_12y/ha/dmsa-phenotype.

File with estimated escape scores from the above pipeline

While we're unable to share the raw intermediate files in this repository, we have included the escape scores for each strain relative to each serum sample at profiles/dmsa-phenotype/results/escape_scores.csv, with the following columns:

• strain: the name of the strain
• date: the date of the strain
• serum: the name of the serum sample
• escape_score: the estimated escape score for the strain relative to the serum sample

Analysis of estimated escape scores

• analysis_code.ipynb: a Jupyter notebook that analyzes the escape scores as described above. This notebook creates Figure 6B from the paper and performs the statistical analysis to test whether the relationship between escape score and sampling date is different for different cohorts.

To run the notebook:

cd profiles/dmsa-phenotype/notebooks
conda env create -f environment.yml
conda activate seasonal-flu-notebook
jupyter notebook