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PyEnsembl

PyEnsembl is a Python interface to Ensembl reference genome metadata such as exons and transcripts. PyEnsembl downloads GTF and FASTA files from the Ensembl FTP server and loads them into a local database. PyEnsembl can also work with custom reference data specified using user-supplied GTF and FASTA files.

Example Usage

from pyensembl import EnsemblRelease

# release 77 uses human reference genome GRCh38
data = EnsemblRelease(77)

# will return ['HLA-A']
gene_names = data.gene_names_at_locus(contig=6, position=29945884)

# get all exons associated with HLA-A
exon_ids  = data.exon_ids_of_gene_name('HLA-A')

Installation

You can install PyEnsembl using pip:

pip install pyensembl

This should also install any required packages such as datacache.

Before using PyEnsembl, run the following command to download and install Ensembl data:

pyensembl install --release <list of Ensembl release numbers> --species <species-name>

For example, pyensembl install --release 75 76 --species human will download and install all human reference data from Ensembl releases 75 and 76.

Alternatively, you can create the EnsemblRelease object from inside a Python process and call ensembl_object.download() followed by ensembl_object.index().

Cache Location

By default, PyEnsembl uses the platform-specific Cache folder and caches the files into the pyensembl sub-directory. You can override this default by setting the environment key PYENSEMBL_CACHE_DIR as your preferred location for caching:

export PYENSEMBL_CACHE_DIR=/custom/cache/dir

or

import os

os.environ['PYENSEMBL_CACHE_DIR'] = '/custom/cache/dir'
# ... PyEnsembl API usage

Usage tips

List installed genomes

To see the genomes for which PyEnsembl has already downloaded and indexed metadata you can run:

pyensembl list

Or equivalently do this in Python:

from pyensembl.shell import collect_all_installed_ensembl_releases
collect_all_installed_ensembl_releases()

Load genome in Python

Here's an example Python snippet that loads fly genome data from Ensembl release v100:

from pyensembl import EnsemblRelease
data = EnsemblRelease(release=100, species='drosophila_melanogaster')

Data structures

Gene

gene = genome.gene_by_id(gene_id='FBgn0011747')

Transcript

transcript = gene.transcripts[0]

Protein information

transcript.protein_id
transcript.protein_sequence

Non-Ensembl Data

PyEnsembl also allows arbitrary genomes via the specification of local file paths or remote URLs to both Ensembl and non-Ensembl GTF and FASTA files. (Warning: GTF formats can vary, and handling of non-Ensembl data is still very much in development.)

For example:

from pyensembl import Genome
data = Genome(
    reference_name='GRCh38',
    annotation_name='my_genome_features',
    # annotation_version=None,
    gtf_path_or_url='/My/local/gtf/path_to_my_genome_features.gtf', # Path or URL of GTF file
    # transcript_fasta_paths_or_urls=None, # List of paths or URLs of FASTA files containing transcript sequences
    # protein_fasta_paths_or_urls=None, # List of paths or URLs of FASTA files containing protein sequences
    # cache_directory_path=None, # Where to place downloaded and cached files for this genome
)
# parse GTF and construct database of genomic features
data.index()
gene_names = data.gene_names_at_locus(contig=6, position=29945884)

API

The EnsemblRelease object has methods to let you access all possible combinations of the annotation features gene_name, gene_id, transcript_name, transcript_id, exon_id as well as the location of these genomic elements (contig, start position, end position, strand).

Genes

Transcripts

Exons