Cited by 24,112Genomics and Phylogenetic StudiesAlgorithms and Data CompressionSingle-cell and spatial transcriptomics

HISAT: a fast spliced aligner with low memory requirements

Open access
Kim, Daehwan, Langmead, Ben, Salzberg, Steven L·2015·Nature Methods

Published version of a preprint

Abstract

HISAT (hierarchical indexing for spliced alignment of transcripts) is a highly efficient system for aligning reads from RNA sequencing experiments. HISAT uses an indexing scheme based on the Burrows-Wheeler transform and the Ferragina-Manzini (FM) index, employing two types of indexes for alignment: a whole-genome FM index to anchor each alignment and numerous local FM indexes for very rapid extensions of these alignments. HISAT's hierarchical index for the human genome contains 48,000 local FM indexes, each representing a genomic region of ∼64,000 bp. Tests on real and simulated data sets showed that HISAT is the fastest system currently available, with equal or better accuracy than any other method. Despite its large number of indexes, HISAT requires only 4.3 gigabytes of memory. HISAT supports genomes of any size, including those larger than 4 billion bases.

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Crossref · 10.1038/nmeth.3317

Cites

4 of 4 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

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  • Spliced read aligners Tophat, STAR and HISAT2 have successfully been used for allele-specific alignments in conjunction with SNPsplit.

    “Spliced read aligners that have successfully been used for allele-specific alignments in conjunction with SNPsplit include Tophat 18, STAR 14 (Spliced Transcripts Alignment to a Reference) and HISAT2 13.”

    From SNPsplit: Allele-specific splitting of alignments between genomes with known SNP genotypes (2016) · cites this paper as [13]

    The Results section (page not available) identifies HISAT as a spliced-read aligner and evaluates it alongside STAR and TopHat2. But the cited paper discusses HISAT and its two-pass variant HISATx2, not HISAT2, and our copy does not report allele-specific alignment with SNPsplit. The citation therefore supports the aligner description, not the claimed HISAT2–SNPsplit use. (LLM, conf=0.82)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
  • Bowtie2, BWA, HISAT2, STAR or any tool wrapping one of these aligners are confirmed to work for alignment to N-masked genomes.

    “Software confirmed to be working for this approach include (but are not limited to) Bowtie2 11, BWA 12, HISAT2 13, STAR 14 or any tool wrapping one of these aligners.”

    From SNPsplit: Allele-specific splitting of alignments between genomes with known SNP genotypes (2016) · cites this paper as [13]

    The Results section (‘Design principles of HISAT,’ page unavailable) identifies HISAT as a genome aligner. But the cited paper describes HISAT, not HISAT2, and the passages do not establish that either works with N-masked genomes or that tools wrapping them do. The citation therefore supports the general aligner identification, not the claimed compatibility. (LLM, conf=0.86)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

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Cites

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Research works printed but not linked: 12

  1. [2]Trapnell C Differential gene and transcript expression analysis of RNA-seq experiments with TopHat and Cufflinks Nat. Protoc 2012 7 562 578 22383036 PMC3334321
  2. [3]Affymetrix/Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory ENCODE Transcriptome Project Post-transcriptional processing generates a diversity of 5′-modified long and short RNAs Nature 2009 457 1028 1032 19169241 PMC2719882
  3. [4]Cabili MN Integrative annotation of human large intergenic noncoding RNAs reveals global properties and specific subclasses Genes Dev 2011 25 1915 1927 21890647 PMC3185964
  4. [5]Kim D Salzberg SL TopHat-Fusion: an algorithm for discovery of novel fusion transcripts Genome Biol 2011 12 R72 21835007 PMC3245612
  5. [6]Garber M Grabherr MG Guttman M Trapnell C Computational methods for transcriptome annotation and quantification using RNA-seq Nat. Methods 2011 8 469 477 21623353
  6. [7]Grant GR Comparative analysis of RNA-Seq alignment algorithms and the RNA-Seq unified mapper (RUM) Bioinformatics 2011 27 2518 2528 21775302 PMC3167048
  7. [8]Engström PG Systematic evaluation of spliced alignment programs for RNA-seq data Nat. Methods 2013 10 1185 1191 24185836 PMC4018468
  8. [9]Kim D TopHat2: accurate alignment of transcriptomes in the presence of insertions, deletions and gene fusions Genome Biol 2013 14 R36 23618408 PMC4053844
  9. [10]Wu TD Nacu S Fast and SNP-tolerant detection of complex variants and splicing in short reads Bioinformatics 2010 26 873 881 20147302 PMC2844994
  10. [13]Ferragina P Manzini G Proc. 41st Annual Symp. Found. Comput. Sci 2000 IEEE 390 398
  11. [15]Wu J Anczuków O Krainer AR Zhang MQ Zhang C OLego: fast and sensitive mapping of spliced mRNA-Seq reads using small seeds Nucleic Acids Res 2013 41 5149 5163 23571760 PMC3664805
  12. [16]Griebel T Modelling and simulating generic RNA-Seq experiments with the flux simulator Nucleic Acids Res 2012 40 10073 10083 22962361 PMC3488205

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Authors
Kim, D., Langmead, B., & Salzberg, S. L.
Affiliations
Johns Hopkins University (US)
Corresponding author
  • Kim, Daehwan
  • Langmead, Ben
  • Salzberg, Steven L
Venue
Nature Methods
Published
2015-03-09
Volume
12
Issue
4
Pages
357-360
ISSN
  • 1548-7091 (ISSN-L)
  • 1548-7105
OpenAlex
W2102278945
Cited by
24,112
References
4
Citations by year
2026: 2225 · 2025: 3155 · 2024: 3552 · 2023: 3219 · 2022: 3367 · 2021: 3264 · 2020: 2339 · 2019: 1674 · 2018: 845 · 2017: 326 · 2016: 97 · 2015: 14 · 2014: 4 · 2013: 1 · 2012: 4
FWCI
186.08
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Nature Methods (publishedVersion)
  • bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) (acceptedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
Funders
  • National Institutes of Health (HG006677)
  • National Human Genome Research Institute (R01HG006102, R01HG006677)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Genomics and Phylogenetic Studies
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Algorithms and Data Compression
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Single-cell and spatial transcriptomics
Keywords
spliced alignment, RNA-seq alignment, Burrows-Wheeler transform, FM-index, hierarchical indexing, transcriptome alignment, genome indexing
MeSH terms
Humans, Pseudogenes, Sequence Alignment, Sequence Analysis, DNA, Sequence Analysis, RNA, Limit of Detection

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