TRIMMOMATICPE(1)

✨ NAME ✨

Welcome to the Trimmomatic Manual, bestie πŸŽ€ Here's the lowdown on TrimmomaticPE, a flexible read trimming tool for Illumina NGS data πŸ’…


πŸ¦‹ SYNOPSIS πŸ¦‹

Paired End Mode:

TrimmomaticPE [-threads threads] [-phred33 | -phred64] [-trimlog logFile] paired output 1 unpaired output 1 paired output 2 unpaired output 2 step 1 ...

Single End Mode:

TrimmomaticSE [-threads threads] [-phred33 | -phred64] [-trimlog logFile] output step 1 ...

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

Okay so, Trimmomatic is literally a whole vibe for trimming illumina paired-end and single ended data 🧚 It can do a variety of useful trimming tasks, and you choose which steps to run and how they're set up right on the command line. No cap, it's so customizable πŸ’–


πŸ‘‘ OPTIONS πŸ‘‘

  • -phred β€” No quality score specified? No stress, phred-64 is the default πŸ™ˆ
  • -trimlog β€” Pass in a trimlog file and Trimmomatic keeps a log of every read trimming, with these details πŸ“
    • the read name
    • the surviving sequence length
    • the location of the first surviving base, aka. the amount trimmed from the start
    • the location of the last surviving base in the original read
    • the amount trimmed from the end

Multiple steps can be stacked by adding more arguments at the end, as many as you need 🌈

Most steps take one or more settings, separated by : (a colon) πŸ’…

Step options πŸ“

  • ILLUMINACLIP:<fastaWithAdaptersEtc>:<seed mismatches>:<palindrome clip threshold>:<simple clip threshold>
    • fastaWithAdaptersEtc: the path to a fasta file holding all the adapters, PCR sequences etc. How each sequence is named inside that file decides how it gets used, so see below πŸ‘€
    • seedMismatches: the maximum mismatch count that still allows a full match to be performed 🎯
    • palindromeClipThreshold: how accurate the match between the two "adapter ligated" reads has to be for PE palindrome read alignment πŸ”
    • simpleClipThreshold: how accurate the match between any adapter etc. sequence has to be against a read 🧐
    • The adapters are installed on the Debian system at /usr/share/trimmomatic/ 🐧
  • SLIDINGWINDOW:<windowSize>:<requiredQuality>
    • windowSize: the number of bases to average across πŸͺŸ
    • requiredQuality: the average quality you require πŸ’―
  • LEADING:<quality>
    • quality: the minimum quality required to keep a base ✨
  • TRAILING:<quality>
    • quality: the minimum quality required to keep a base ✨
  • CROP:<length>
    • length: the number of bases to keep, counting from the start of the read βœ‚οΈ
  • HEADCROP:<length>
    • length: the number of bases to remove from the start of the read 🫧
  • MINLENGTH:<length>
    • length: the minimum length of reads to be kept πŸ¦‹

Trimming Order πŸŽ€

Trimming happens in the order the steps are specified on the command line. It's recommended in most cases that adapter clipping, if you need it, happens as early as possible ⭐


🧚 EXAMPLES 🧚

Paired End:

TrimmomaticPE s_1_1_sequence.txt.gz s_1_2_sequence.txt.gz lane1_forward_paired.fq.gz lane1_forward_unpaired.fq.gz lane1_reverse_paired.fq.gz lane1_reverse_unpaired.fq.gz ILLUMINACLIP:/usr/share/trimmomatic/illuminaClipping.fa:2:40:15 LEADING:3 TRAILING:3 SLIDINGWINDOW:4:15 MINLEN:36

This is what it's giving πŸ”₯

  • Remove adapters
  • Remove leading low quality or N bases (below quality 3)
  • Remove trailing low quality or N bases (below quality 3)
  • Scan the read with a 4-base wide sliding window, cutting when the average quality per base drops below 15
  • Drop reads that come out below 36 bases long

The equivalent for single-ended reads is giving the same main character energy πŸ’œ

TrimmomaticSE s_1_1_sequence.txt.gz lane1_forward.fq.gz ILLUMINACLIP:/usr/share/trimmomatic/illuminaClipping.fa:2:40:15 LEADING:3 TRAILING:3 SLIDINGWINDOW:4:15 MINLEN:36

That's the whole tea, bestie 🫢 You just read TRIMMOMATICPE(1) from Trimmomatic 0.22, dated July 2012 πŸ‘‘πŸ’–