Ehapp2: Estimate haplotype frequencies from pooled sequencing data with prior database information

To reduce the cost of large-scale re-sequencing, multiple individuals are pooled together and sequenced called pooled sequencing. Pooled sequencing could provide a cost-effective alternative to sequencing individuals separately. To facilitate the application of pooled sequencing in haplotype-based diseases association analysis, the critical procedure is to accurately estimate haplotype frequencies from pooled samples. Here we present Ehapp2 for estimating haplotype frequencies from pooled sequencing data by utilizing a database which provides prior information of known haplotypes. We first translate the problem of estimating frequency for each haplotype into finding a sparse solution for a system of linear equations, where the NNREG algorithm is employed to achieve the solution. Simulation experiments reveal that Ehapp2 is robust to sequencing errors and able to estimate the frequencies of haplotypes with less than 3% average relative difference for pooled sequencing of mixture of real Drosophila haplotypes with 50× total coverage even when the sequencing error rate is as high as 0.05. Owing to the strategy that proportions for local haplotypes spanning multiple SNPs are accurately calculated first, Ehapp2 retains excellent estimation for recombinant haplotypes resulting from chromosomal crossover. Comparisons with present methods reveal that Ehapp2 is state-of-the-art for many sequencing study designs and more suitable for current massive parallel sequencing.