AccuCalc: A Python Package for Accuracy Calculation in GWAS

The genome-wide association study (GWAS) is a popular genomic approach that identifies genomic regions associated with a phenotype and, thus, aims to discover causative mutations (CM) in the genes underlying the phenotype. However, GWAS discoveries are limited by many factors and typically identify associated genomic regions without the further ability to compare the viability of candidate genes and actual CMs. Therefore, the current methodology is limited to CM identification. In our recent work, we presented a novel approach to an empowered "GWAS to Genes" strategy that we named Synthetic phenotype to causative mutation (SP2CM). We established this strategy to identify CMs in soybean genes and developed a web-based tool for accuracy calculation (AccuTool) for a reference panel of soybean accessions. Here, we describe our further development of the tool that extends its utilization for other species and named it AccuCalc. We enhanced the tool for the analysis of datasets with a low-frequency distribution of a rare phenotype by automated formatting of a synthetic phenotype and added another accuracy-based GWAS evaluation criterion to the accuracy calculation. We designed AccuCalc as a Python package for GWAS data analysis for any user-defined species-independent variant calling format (vcf) or HapMap format (hmp) as input data. AccuCalc saves analysis outputs in user-friendly tab-delimited formats and also offers visualization of the GWAS results as Manhattan plots accentuated by accuracy. Under the hood of Python, AccuCalc is publicly available and, thus, can be used conveniently for the SP2CM strategy utilization for every species.