gTranslate

gTranslate is a machine learning-based command-line tool for predicting the translation table (TT) used by prokaryotic genomes. By analyzing specific sequence features — such as coding density differences, Trp ratios, and Gly ratios — gTranslate can accurately distinguish between the genetic codes associated with reassignment of the UGA stop codon, i.e. translation tables 11 (standard prokaryotic code), 4 (UGA=Trp), and 25 (UGA=Gly).

Features

• Automated Table Detection: Rapidly predict the correct translation table for a single genome or large batches of genomes.
• Interactive Visualizations: Generate dynamic HTML dashboards to explore the feature space used by the classifiers.

Documentation

Documentation for gTranslate can be found here.

Usage

gTranslate has seven subcommands:

• detect_table and generate_plot to predict translation tables and explore the features used;
• check_install and test to validate your installation (see Testing);
• ground_truth, build_features and fit_models to train your own models.

You can view the general help menu at any time:

gtranslate -h

Detect table

The core pipeline for detecting the translation table used by prokaryotic organisms. You must provide input genomes either via a directory or a batch file.

Basic Usage:

# Process a directory of genomic FASTA files
gtranslate detect_table --genome_dir /path/to/genomes --out_dir /path/to/output

# Process genomic FASTA files defined in a batch file
gtranslate detect_table --batchfile genomes.tsv --out_dir /path/to/output

The file provided to --batchfile is a two-column, tab-separated values (TSV) file that indicates the path to the genomic FASTA file and the desired genome identifier, e.g.:

/example/path/GCF_001729785.1_ASM172978v1/GCF_001729785.1.fna.gz	G001729785
/a/different/path/GCF_043834535.1.fna.gz	G043834535
...

Generate plot (optional)

Generates an interactive HTML dashboard to visually explore the features (e.g., coding density difference, amino acid ratios) used by gTranslate to predict the translation table.

Basic Usage:

gtranslate generate_plot --feature_file /path/to/output/gtranslate.feature_summary.tsv --output_file dashboard.html

The file gtranslate.feature_summary.tsv provided to --feature_file is generated by the detect_table command.

Testing

Validation that gTranslate has been installed correctly and is operating as expected can be done using the check_install and test subcommands:

Check installation

Verifies that all third-party software is on the system path and that the model files are present in the directory pointed to by GTRANSLATE_MODEL_PATH.

Basic Usage:

gtranslate check_install

Test operation of gTranslate

Runs detect_table on three bundled genomes (one each for translation tables 4, 11 and 25) to validate that gTranslate is functioning correctly on your system. The models must be downloaded and GTRANSLATE_MODEL_PATH set before running this command.

Basic Usage:

gtranslate test --cpus 4

Note: If --out_dir is not specified, the test will securely execute in a temporary directory.