ricME: Long-Read Based Mobile Element Variant Detection Using Sequence Realignment and Identity Calculation

The mobile element variant is a very important structural variant, accounting for a quarter of structural variants, and it is closely related to many issues such as genetic diseases and species diversity. However, few detection algorithms of mobile element variants have been developed on third-generation sequencing data. We propose an algorithm ricME that combines sequence realignment and identity calculation for detecting mobile element variants. The ricME first performs an initial detection to obtain the positions of insertions and deletions, and extracts the variant sequences; then applies sequence realignment and identity calculation to obtain the transposon classes related to the variant sequences; finally, adopts a multi-level judgment rule to achieve accurate detection of mobile element variants based on the transposon classes and identities. Compared with a representative long-read based mobile element variant detection algorithm rMETL, the ricME improves the F1-score by 11.5 and 21.7% on simulated datasets and real datasets, respectively.