Hadoop-CNV-RF: a clinically validated and scalable copy number variation detection tool for next-generation sequencing data

Objective : Detection of small copy number variations (CNVs) in clinically relevant genes is routinely being used to aid diagnosis. We recently developed a tool, CNV-RF , capable of detecting small clinically relevant CNVs. CNV-RF was designed for small gene panels and did not scale well to large gene panels. On large gene panels, CNV-RF routinely failed due to memory limitations. When successful, it took about 2 days to complete a single analysis, making it impractical for routinely analyzing large gene panels. We need a reliable tool capable of detecting CNVs in the clinic that scales well to large gene panels. Results : We have developed Hadoop-CNV-RF, a scalable implementation of CNV-RF . Hadoop-CNV-RF is a freely available tool capable of rapidly analyzing large gene panels. It takes advantage of Hadoop, a big data framework developed to analyze large amounts of data. Preliminary results show it reduces analysis time from about 2 days to less than 4 hours and can seamlessly scale to large gene panels. Hadoop-CNV-RF has been clinically validated for targeted capture data and is currently being used in a CLIA molecular diagnostics laboratory. Its availability and usage instructions are publicly available at: https://github.com/getiria-onsongo/hadoop-cnvrf-public .