seq_expressions: Biological-sequence functions inside mutate(), filter(), and...

In vectra: Columnar Query Engine for Larger-than-RAM Data

Biological-sequence functions inside mutate(), filter(), and summarise()

Description

vectra recognizes a family of ⁠seq_*⁠ functions directly inside expression verbs. A DNA, RNA, or protein sequence rides through the engine as an ordinary ASCII string column; these functions decode it in C one row at a time and compute a measure, a transformed sequence, or an edit distance straight off it, streaming at engine speed with no round-trip through Biostrings. tbl_fasta("reads.fa") |> mutate(gc = seq_gc(seq)) adds a GC-content column; filter(seq_dist(seq, ref) <= 3) prunes the stream in C.

Details

These names are interpreted by the expression engine; they are not exported R functions and are not called as such. They are available only inside mutate(), transmute(), filter(), and a grouped summarise() over a vectra_node. The sequence argument is an ordinary string column.

Measures

seq_length(x)

Number of characters in the sequence (integer).

seq_gc(x)

GC fraction: the count of G and C divided by the sequence length, in ⁠[0, 1]⁠ (double). Case-insensitive; only literal G/C are counted, so an ambiguity code such as S does not contribute.

Transforms (return a sequence)

seq_revcomp(x)

Reverse complement.

seq_complement(x)

Complement, DNA alphabet (A<->T), with the IUPAC ambiguity codes mapped to their complements and case preserved. A U is complemented to A; transcribe first for an RNA-alphabet complement.

seq_reverse(x)

Reverse the sequence (no complement).

seq_transcribe(x)

Swap T<->U, turning DNA into RNA and RNA into DNA (case preserved).

seq_translate(x, table = 1)

Translate in reading frame 1 to a protein sequence using the standard genetic code (NCBI transl_table 1; table currently accepts only 1). A trailing partial codon is dropped; a codon containing any non-ACGTU base yields X, a stop codon *.

seq_subseq(x, start, width)

Substring of width characters starting at 1-based start, clamped to the sequence. start and width may be columns or constants.

Distance

seq_dist(x, ref, method = "levenshtein")

Edit distance between each sequence and a reference (integer). ref is another sequence column (compared row by row) or a single constant string (compared against every row). method is "levenshtein" (default; also "lv", "edit"), "dl" / "damerau" / "osa" for the optimal-string-alignment Damerau-Levenshtein distance, or "hamming" (substitutions only; NA when the two sequences differ in length).

Missing sequence

A missing (NA) cell yields NA for that row rather than an error, matching the ⁠st_*⁠ and embedding-distance contract. Unexpected characters are processed as-is (passed through by complement, translated to X).

See Also

mutate(), filter(); geom_expressions and the embedding distances (cosine, l2, dot) for the other per-row blob-column families.

Examples

reads <- data.frame(
  id  = c("r1", "r2", "r3"),
  seq = c("ATGGCCATTGTA", "GGGCCCTTTAAA", "ATGTAA"),
  stringsAsFactors = FALSE
)
f <- tempfile(fileext = ".vtr")
write_vtr(reads, f)

tbl(f) |>
  mutate(
    len = seq_length(seq),
    gc  = seq_gc(seq),
    rc  = seq_revcomp(seq),
    aa  = seq_translate(seq),
    d   = seq_dist(seq, "ATGGCCATTGTA")
  ) |>
  collect()

unlink(f)

vectra documentation built on July 10, 2026, 5:08 p.m.