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Variation benchmark datasets : update, criteria, quality and applications

Sarkar, Anasua LU orcid ; Yang, Yang LU and Vihinen, Mauno LU orcid (2020) In Database: the journal of biological databases and curation 2020.
Abstract

Development of new computational methods and testing their performance has to be carried out using experimental data. Only in comparison to existing knowledge can method performance be assessed. For that purpose, benchmark datasets with known and verified outcome are needed. High-quality benchmark datasets are valuable and may be difficult, laborious and time consuming to generate. VariBench and VariSNP are the two existing databases for sharing variation benchmark datasets used mainly for variation interpretation. They have been used for training and benchmarking predictors for various types of variations and their effects. VariBench was updated with 419 new datasets from 109 papers containing altogether 329 014 152 variants; however,... (More)

Development of new computational methods and testing their performance has to be carried out using experimental data. Only in comparison to existing knowledge can method performance be assessed. For that purpose, benchmark datasets with known and verified outcome are needed. High-quality benchmark datasets are valuable and may be difficult, laborious and time consuming to generate. VariBench and VariSNP are the two existing databases for sharing variation benchmark datasets used mainly for variation interpretation. They have been used for training and benchmarking predictors for various types of variations and their effects. VariBench was updated with 419 new datasets from 109 papers containing altogether 329 014 152 variants; however, there is plenty of redundancy between the datasets. VariBench is freely available at http://structure.bmc.lu.se/VariBench/. The contents of the datasets vary depending on information in the original source. The available datasets have been categorized into 20 groups and subgroups. There are datasets for insertions and deletions, substitutions in coding and non-coding region, structure mapped, synonymous and benign variants. Effect-specific datasets include DNA regulatory elements, RNA splicing, and protein property for aggregation, binding free energy, disorder and stability. Then there are several datasets for molecule-specific and disease-specific applications, as well as one dataset for variation phenotype effects. Variants are often described at three molecular levels (DNA, RNA and protein) and sometimes also at the protein structural level including relevant cross references and variant descriptions. The updated VariBench facilitates development and testing of new methods and comparison of obtained performances to previously published methods. We compared the performance of the pathogenicity/tolerance predictor PON-P2 to several benchmark studies, and show that such comparisons are feasible and useful, however, there may be limitations due to lack of provided details and shared data. Database URL: http://structure.bmc.lu.se/VariBench.

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Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
; and
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
in
Database: the journal of biological databases and curation
volume
2020
article number
baz117
publisher
Oxford University Press
external identifiers
  • pmid:32016318
  • scopus:85078923741
ISSN
1758-0463
DOI
10.1093/database/baz117
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
07bafb66-7c04-4eda-b83d-de7b93c83fef
date added to LUP
2020-02-17 14:50:06
date last changed
2022-04-18 20:36:50
@article{07bafb66-7c04-4eda-b83d-de7b93c83fef,
  abstract     = {{<p>Development of new computational methods and testing their performance has to be carried out using experimental data. Only in comparison to existing knowledge can method performance be assessed. For that purpose, benchmark datasets with known and verified outcome are needed. High-quality benchmark datasets are valuable and may be difficult, laborious and time consuming to generate. VariBench and VariSNP are the two existing databases for sharing variation benchmark datasets used mainly for variation interpretation. They have been used for training and benchmarking predictors for various types of variations and their effects. VariBench was updated with 419 new datasets from 109 papers containing altogether 329 014 152 variants; however, there is plenty of redundancy between the datasets. VariBench is freely available at http://structure.bmc.lu.se/VariBench/. The contents of the datasets vary depending on information in the original source. The available datasets have been categorized into 20 groups and subgroups. There are datasets for insertions and deletions, substitutions in coding and non-coding region, structure mapped, synonymous and benign variants. Effect-specific datasets include DNA regulatory elements, RNA splicing, and protein property for aggregation, binding free energy, disorder and stability. Then there are several datasets for molecule-specific and disease-specific applications, as well as one dataset for variation phenotype effects. Variants are often described at three molecular levels (DNA, RNA and protein) and sometimes also at the protein structural level including relevant cross references and variant descriptions. The updated VariBench facilitates development and testing of new methods and comparison of obtained performances to previously published methods. We compared the performance of the pathogenicity/tolerance predictor PON-P2 to several benchmark studies, and show that such comparisons are feasible and useful, however, there may be limitations due to lack of provided details and shared data. Database URL: http://structure.bmc.lu.se/VariBench.</p>}},
  author       = {{Sarkar, Anasua and Yang, Yang and Vihinen, Mauno}},
  issn         = {{1758-0463}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  month        = {{01}},
  publisher    = {{Oxford University Press}},
  series       = {{Database: the journal of biological databases and curation}},
  title        = {{Variation benchmark datasets : update, criteria, quality and applications}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/database/baz117}},
  doi          = {{10.1093/database/baz117}},
  volume       = {{2020}},
  year         = {{2020}},
}