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Wrapper around Beagle 5.x for statistical haplotype phasing. Calls java -jar beagle.jar and writes the phased VCF.gz to disk. This is the recommended phasing method in LDxBlocks: Beagle performs chromosome-level statistical phasing using population-LD across all markers simultaneously, producing true inferred haplotypes suitable for block-level frequency estimation and diversity analysis.

Usage

phase_with_beagle(
  input_vcf,
  out_prefix,
  beagle_jar = NULL,
  java_path = "java",
  java_mem_gb = NULL,
  nthreads = 1L,
  ref_panel = NULL,
  map_file = NULL,
  chrom = NULL,
  seed = NULL,
  burnin = NULL,
  iterations = NULL,
  window = NULL,
  overlap = NULL,
  beagle_args = "",
  verbose = TRUE
)

Arguments

input_vcf

Path to input VCF or VCF.gz (unphased).

out_prefix

Output path prefix. Beagle appends .vcf.gz.

beagle_jar

Path to beagle.jar. Default: searched in dirname(out_prefix), then standard locations.

java_path

Java executable. Default "java".

java_mem_gb

Java heap size in GB (e.g. 8 sets -Xmx8g). Default NULL (uses JVM default). Increase for large VCFs.

nthreads

Beagle threads. Default 1L.

ref_panel

Optional path to phased reference VCF. Default NULL.

map_file

Optional genetic map file for more accurate phasing in structured populations. Default NULL.

chrom

Optional chromosome string passed to Beagle (e.g. "chr1" or "1"). Default NULL (all chromosomes).

seed

Integer random seed for reproducibility. Default NULL.

burnin

Beagle burn-in iterations. Default NULL (Beagle default).

iterations

Beagle phasing iterations. Default NULL (Beagle default).

window

Beagle window size. Default NULL (Beagle default).

overlap

Beagle window overlap. Default NULL (Beagle default).

beagle_args

Additional Beagle arguments string, space-separated. Default "".

verbose

Logical. Default TRUE.

Value

Invisibly returns the path to the phased VCF.gz. Beagle stdout and stderr are written to out_prefix.log.

Note

Sys.which("beagle.jar") typically fails to find .jar files on PATH. Supply beagle_jar explicitly or place beagle.jar next to out_prefix. Download: https://faculty.washington.edu/browning/beagle/beagle.html

References

Browning et al. (2018) Am J Hum Genet 103:338-348.