Plink is a whole genome association analysis toolset, designed to perform a range of basic, large-scale analyses in a computationally efficient manner.

The focus of PLINK is purely on analysis of genotype/phenotype data, so there is no support for steps prior to this (e.g. study design and planning, generating genotype calls from raw data). Through integration with gPLINK and Haploview, there is some support for the subsequent visualization, annotation and storage of results.

PLINK (one syllable) is being developed by Shaun Purcell at the Center for Human Genetic Research (CHGR), Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), and the Broad Institute of Harvard & MIT, with the support of others.

References:

• Purcell et al., PLINK: A Tool Set for Whole-Genome Association and Population-Based Linkage Analyses. 2007. Link

• Plink Main Site

• Module Name: plink (see the modules page for more information)
• Singlethreaded app
• Example files in /usr/local/apps/plink/TEST_DATA

Allocate an interactive session and run the program. Sample session:

[user@biowulf]$ sinteractive
salloc.exe: Pending job allocation 46116226
salloc.exe: job 46116226 queued and waiting for resources
salloc.exe: job 46116226 has been allocated resources
salloc.exe: Granted job allocation 46116226
salloc.exe: Waiting for resource configuration
salloc.exe: Nodes cn3144 are ready for job

[user@cn3144 ~]$ module load plink
[+] Loading plink  3.6-alpha

[user@cn3144 ~]$ cp /usr/local/apps/plink/TEST_DATA/* .

[user@cn3144 ~]$ plink2  --dummy 2 2 --freq --make-bed --out toy_data
PLINK v2.00a3.6LM 64-bit Intel (14 Aug 2022)   www.cog-genomics.org/plink/2.0/
(C) 2005-2022 Shaun Purcell, Christopher Chang   GNU General Public License v3
Logging to toy_data.log.
Options in effect:
  --dummy 2 2
  --freq
  --make-bed
  --out toy_data

Start time: Wed Sep 21 09:35:39 2022
233597 MiB RAM detected; reserving 116798 MiB for main workspace.
Allocated 65698 MiB successfully, after larger attempt(s) failed.
Using up to 14 threads (change this with --threads).
Dummy data (2 samples, 2 SNPs) written to toy_data-temporary.pgen +
toy_data-temporary.pvar + toy_data-temporary.psam .
2 samples (2 females, 0 males; 2 founders) loaded from toy_data-temporary.psam.
2 variants loaded from toy_data-temporary.pvar.
1 binary phenotype loaded (2 cases, 0 controls).
Calculating allele frequencies... done.
--freq: Allele frequencies (founders only) written to toy_data.afreq .
Writing toy_data.fam ... done.
Writing toy_data.bim ... done.
Writing toy_data.bed ... done.
End time: Wed Sep 21 09:35:39 2022


[user@cn3144 ~]$ exit
salloc.exe: Relinquishing job allocation 46116226
[user@biowulf ~]$

Create a batch input file (e.g. plink.sh). For example:

#!/bin/bash
cd /data/$USER/plink/t1
plink2  --dummy 2 2 --freq --make-bed --out toy_data

Submit this job using the Slurm sbatch command.

sbatch --mem=6g plink.sh

Create a swarmfile (e.g. plink.swarm). For example:

cd /data/$USER/myseqs; plink2 --noweb --ped file1.ped --map file2.map --assoc
cd /data/$USER/myseqs; plink2 --noweb --ped file2.ped --map file2.map --assoc
cd /data/$USER/myseqs; plink2 --noweb --ped file3.ped --map file3.map --assoc
[...etc...]

Submit this job using the swarm command.

swarm -f plink.swarm [-g #] --module plink