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Perl Tutorial

This document contains a Perl tutorial covering various tasks for working with DNA/RNA sequences including: storing sequences in variables; concatenating sequences; transcribing DNA to RNA; calculating the reverse complement of a sequence; reading protein sequences from files; determining nucleotide frequencies using regular expressions and loops; and writing results to files. The tutorial provides code examples for each task and discusses concepts like using variables, file I/O, pattern matching, and conditional logic.

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Jessica Mitchell
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198 views

Perl Tutorial

This document contains a Perl tutorial covering various tasks for working with DNA/RNA sequences including: storing sequences in variables; concatenating sequences; transcribing DNA to RNA; calculating the reverse complement of a sequence; reading protein sequences from files; determining nucleotide frequencies using regular expressions and loops; and writing results to files. The tutorial provides code examples for each task and discusses concepts like using variables, file I/O, pattern matching, and conditional logic.

Uploaded by

Jessica Mitchell
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Perl

tutorial

Working with DNA Sequences

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
# Storing DNA in a variable, and printing it out
# First we store the DNA in a variable called $DNA

$DNA = 'ACGGGAGGACGGGAAAATTACTACGGCATTAGC';

# Next, we print the DNA onto the screen

print $DNA;

# Finally, we'll specifically tell the program to exit.

exit;

Concatenating the DNA sequences

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
# Concatenating DNA
# Store two DNA fragments into variables called $DNA1
#and $DNA2

$DNA1 = 'ACGGGAGGACGGGAAAATTACTACGGCATTAGC';
$DNA2 = 'ATAGTGCCGTGAGAGTGATGTAGTA';

# Print the DNA onto the screen

print "Here are the original two DNA fragments:\n\n";


print $DNA1, "\n";
print $DNA2, "\n\n";

# Concatenate the DNA fragments into a third variable and


#print them Using "string interpolation"
$DNA3 = "$DNA1$DNA2";
print "Here is the new DNA of the two fragments

version 1):\n\n";
print "$DNA3\n\n";

# An alternative way using the "dot operator":


# Concatenate the DNA fragments into a third variable and
# print them

$DNA3 = $DNA1 . $DNA2;


print "Here is the concatenation of the first two fragments
(version 2):\n\n";
print "$DNA3\n\n";

# Print the same thing without using the variable $DNA3

print "Here is the concatenation of the first two fragments


(version 3):\n\n";
print $DNA1, $DNA2, "\n";
exit;

TRANSCRIPTION: DNA -> RNA

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

# Transcribing DNA into RNA


# The DNA

$DNA = 'ACGGGAGGACGGGAAAATTACTACGGCATTAGC';

# Print the DNA onto the screen


print "Here is the starting DNA:\n\n";
print "$DNA\n\n";

# Transcribe the DNA to RNA by substituting all T's with U's.

$RNA = $DNA;
$RNA =~ s/T/U/g;
# Print the RNA onto the screen
print "Here is the result of transcribing the DNA to
RNA:\n\n";
print "$RNA\n";

# Exit the program.


exit;

Reverse Complement

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
# Calculating the reverse complement of a strand of DNA

# The DNA
$DNA = 'ACGGGAGGACGGGAAAATTACTACGGCATTAGC';

# Print the DNA onto the screen


print "Here is the starting DNA:\n\n";
print "$DNA\n\n";

# Calculate the reverse complement

# First, copy the DNA into new variable $revcom


# (short for REVerse COMplement)
#
# It doesn't matter if we first reverse the string and then
# do the complementation; or if we first do the
complementation
# and then reverse the string. Same result each time.
# So when we make the copy we'll do the reverse in the same
statement.

$revcom = reverse $DNA;

-----
The DNA is now reversed.. we neeed to complement the bases
in revcom - substitute all bases by their complements.
# A->T, T->A, G->C, C->G
####Attempt 1:

$revcom =~ s/A/T/g;
$revcom =~ s/T/A/g;
$revcom =~ s/G/C/g;
$revcom =~ s/C/G/g;
# Print the reverse complement DNA onto the screen
print "Here is the reverse complement DNA:\n\n";
print "$revcom\n";

#################

Does this work?? Why?





# See the text for a discussion of tr///
$revcom =~ tr/ACGTacgt/TGCAtgca/;

# Print the reverse complement DNA onto the screen


print "Here is the reverse complement DNA:\n\n";
print "$revcom\n";
print "\nThis time it worked!\n\n";
exit;




Reading Proteins in files

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
# Reading protein sequence data from a file
# The filename of the file containing the protein sequence
data

$proteinfilename = 'Name_Of_your_sequence_file.txt';

# First we have to "open" the file, and associate


# a "filehandle" with it. We choose the filehandle
# PROTEINFILE for readability.
open(PROTEINFILE, $proteinfilename) || Die ("cannot open
file");

# Now we do the actual reading of the protein sequence data


from the file, by using the angle brackets < and > to get
the input from the filehandle. We store the data into our
variable $protein.

@protein = <PROTEINFILE>;

# Now that we've got our data, we can close the file.

close PROTEINFILE;

# Print the protein onto the screen


print "Here is the protein:\n\n";
print @protein;
exit;

Pattern matching: Motifs and Loops

Proceed ONLY if condition is true...

code layout..
if (condition)

do something

Finding Motifs
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
# if-elsif-else

$word = 'MNIDDKL';

# if-elsif-else conditionals

if($word eq 'QSTVSGE') {
print "QSTVSGE\n";
} elsif($word eq 'MRQQDMISHDEL') {
print "MRQQDMISHDEL\n";
}

GC CONTENT

In PCR experiments, the GC-content of primers are used to predict their annealing temperature
to the template DNA. A higher GC-content level indicates a higher melting temperature.

GC % = G + C x100

A+G+C+T

Logical:

for each base in the DNA

if base is A
count_of_A = count_of_A + 1

if base is C
count_of_C = count_of_C + 1
if base is G
count_of_G = count_of_G + 1

if base is T
count_of_T = count_of_T + 1

done

print count_of_A, count_of_C, count_of_G, count_of_T


the script

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
# Determining frequency of nucleotides
# Get the name of the file with the DNA sequence data

$dna_filename = File_name.txt;

# Remove the newline from the DNA filename


chomp $dna_filename;

# open the file, or exit

open(DNAFILE, $dna_filename) || die ("Cannot open file


\"$dna_filename\");
exit;
}

# Read the DNA sequence data from the file, and store it
# into the array variable @DNA
@DNA = <DNAFILE>;
# Close the file
close DNAFILE;

# From the lines of the DNA file,


# put the DNA sequence data into a single string.
$DNA = join( '', @DNA);
# Remove whitespace
$DNA =~ s/\s//g;

# Now explode the DNA into an array where each letter of


# the original string is now an element in the array.
# This will make it easy to look at each position.
# Notice that we're reusing the variable @DNA for this
purpose.
@DNA = split( '', $DNA );

# Initialize the counts.


# Notice that we can use scalar variables to hold numbers.
$count_of_A = 0;
$count_of_C = 0;
$count_of_G = 0;
$count_of_T = 0;
$errors = 0;

# In a loop, look at each base in turn, determine which of


# the four types of nucleotides it is, and increment the
# appropriate count.

foreach $base (@DNA)


{
if ( $base eq 'A' ) {
++$count_of_A;
}
elsif ( $base eq 'C' ) {
++$count_of_C;
}
elsif ( $base eq 'G' ) {
++$count_of_G;
}
elsif ( $base eq 'T' ) {
++$count_of_T;
}
else {
print "!!!!!!!! Error - I don\'t recognize this
base: $base\n";
++$errors;
}
}

# print the results


print "A = $count_of_A\n";
print "C = $count_of_C\n";
print "G = $count_of_G\n";
print "T = $count_of_T\n";
print "errors = $errors\n";
# exit the program
exit;

---using regex ---

while($DNA =~ /a/ig){$a++}
while($DNA =~ /c/ig){$c++}
while($DNA =~ /g/ig){$g++}
while($DNA =~ /t/ig){$t++}
while($DNA =~ /[^acgt]/ig){$e++}
print "A=$a C=$c G=$g T=$t errors=$e\n";

----

Next is a new kind of loop, the foreach loop. This loop works over the elements
of an
array. The line:
foreach $base (@DNA)

Wrtiting to files

# Also write the results to a file called "countbase"


$outputfile = "countbase";
(
unless
open(COUNTBASE, ">$outputfile") || die ("Cannot open file
\"$outputfile\" to write to!!\n\n");

print COUNTBASE "A=$a C=$c G=$g T=$t errors=$e\n";


close(COUNTBASE);

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