FASTA Database Curator

Curate FASTA/FAA reference databases: standardize headers, merge files, remove duplicates, and validate the result for BLAST, DIAMOND, MMseqs2, or HMMER. Every transformation leaves a header mapping and a deduplication report.

Supplementary version-grounded tool notes: tools.md.

Header Format Standards

Recommended Format

Use pipe-separated fields with a consistent source prefix:

>PREFIX|ACCESSION|DESCRIPTION
SEQUENCE...

Examples:

>VP|Mavirus_MCP|Major_capsid_protein_[Virophage]
>PLV|NC_021333_1|Polinton-like_virus_hypothetical_protein
>NCLDV|YP_009173877.1|DNA_polymerase_[Marseilleviridae]

What the bundled script does

scripts/curate_fasta.py keeps the whole raw header, replaces each whitespace run and each character outside A-Za-z0-9_.|:- with _, collapses repeated _, and prepends PREFIX| when --prefix is set:

>seq 1 alpha protein          ->  >REF|seq_1_alpha_protein
>NC_021333.1 hypothetical     ->  >REF|NC_021333.1_hypothetical

Split accession and description into separate pipe fields with a custom rule, and keep the mapping table for it as well.

BLAST makeblastdb -parse_seqids reads | as NCBI seq-id syntax and fails on custom prefixes such as VP|... ("Could not construct seq-id"). Build pipe-delimited databases without -parse_seqids. DIAMOND, MMseqs2, and HMMER keep the full first word of the header.

Quick Reference

Instructions

Use scripts/curate_fasta.py for routine FASTA curation. It parses raw headers before any library can truncate them, uppercases sequences, uses SHA-256 sequence digests, refuses empty inputs, empty records, and existing outputs, and writes a header mapping and a JSON deduplication report. A retained record whose curated ID repeats an earlier one gets a |record_N suffix. Keep the snippets below for custom transformations only.

Step 1: Analyze Input Database

First, understand what you're working with:

# Count sequences
grep -c "^>" database.fasta

# Sample headers (first 20)
grep "^>" database.fasta | head -20

# Check for problematic characters
grep "^>" database.fasta | grep -E "[\t ]" | head -10

# Sequence length distribution
awk '/^>/ {if (seq) print length(seq); seq=""} !/^>/ {seq=seq$0} END {print length(seq)}' database.fasta | sort -n | uniq -c

Step 2: Curate with the Bundled Script

The script standardizes headers, merges multiple inputs, deduplicates, and writes the mapping and report in one pass:

uv run --script skills/bio-fasta-database-curator/scripts/curate_fasta.py \
  input1.fasta input2.fasta \
  --output curated.fasta \
  --mapping header_mapping.tsv \
  --report dedup_report.json \
  --prefix REF \
  --deduplicate both        # none | id | sequence | both

Without --mapping and --report, the script writes curated.fasta.mapping.tsv and curated.fasta.report.json next to the output.

Write custom Biopython transformations only when a rule falls outside the script's flags, and keep the original-to-new ID mapping in that case too.

Step 3: Generate Statistics and Validate

Use SeqKit (versions and more commands in tools.md) to parse every record, check the alphabet, and summarize; count prefixes from the headers:

seqkit stats -a -T curated.fasta              # counts, length distribution, sequence type, GC(%)
seqkit seq -t protein --validate-seq curated.fasta > /dev/null   # nonzero exit on an invalid residue; -t dna for nucleotides
seqkit grep -nrp " " curated.fasta | head     # must return nothing: no whitespace in headers
grep '^>' curated.fasta | cut -c2- | cut -d'|' -f1 | sort | uniq -c   # records per prefix

Input Requirements

• One or more FASTA, FAA, FNA, FFN, or GenBank files.
• Desired header convention, prefix policy, and duplicate-removal rule.
• Taxonomy labels or accession metadata when headers need biological grouping.
• Downstream tool constraints, such as BLAST, DIAMOND, MMseqs2, HMMER, or pyhmmer header behavior.

Output

• Curated FASTA/FAA database with stable identifiers.
• Header mapping table from original IDs to curated IDs.
• Deduplication report with retained and removed records.
• Summary statistics for record count, length distribution, sequence alphabet, prefix/taxonomy counts, and GC content when nucleotide sequences are used.
• Validation notes documenting any skipped transformations or unresolved IDs.

Quality Gates

• Every output header is unique and contains no whitespace.
• Original-to-curated ID mapping is written before destructive transformations.
• Duplicate policy is explicit: by ID, by sequence, or by both.
• FASTA parser can read the curated database end-to-end.
• Record counts before and after curation match the deduplication and filtering report.

Format Conversions

GenBank to FASTA

from Bio import SeqIO


def genbank_to_fasta(input_gb: str, output_fasta: str):
    """Convert GenBank format to FASTA."""
    records = SeqIO.parse(input_gb, "genbank")
    count = SeqIO.write(records, output_fasta, "fasta")
    return count

Multi-line to Single-line FASTA

seqkit seq -w 0 multi.fasta > single.fasta

Extract CDS from GenBank

def extract_cds_proteins(input_gb: str, output_faa: str):
    """Extract CDS translations from GenBank file."""
    with open(output_faa, 'w') as out:
        for record in SeqIO.parse(input_gb, "genbank"):
            for feature in record.features:
                if feature.type == "CDS":
                    if "translation" in feature.qualifiers:
                        protein = feature.qualifiers["translation"][0]
                        locus = feature.qualifiers.get("locus_tag", ["unknown"])[0]
                        product = feature.qualifiers.get("product", ["unknown"])[0]
                        product = "_".join(product.split())  # no whitespace in IDs
                        out.write(f">{locus}|{product}\n{protein}\n")

Best Practices

• Define a taxonomy prefix scheme and stick to it (e.g. VP| virophages, PLV| polinton-like viruses, NCLDV| NCLDVs, MIRUS| Mirus viruses).
• Keep the header mapping and deduplication report with the database so every transformation stays auditable.
• Re-run statistics after processing and compare against the pre-curation counts.

Examples

uv run --script skills/bio-fasta-database-curator/scripts/curate_fasta.py \
  fixtures/mixed-headers.fasta \
  --output curated.fasta \
  --prefix REF \
  --deduplicate both

User: "Standardize the headers in virophage_raw.fasta and remove duplicates"

1. Analyze input: count records, sample headers, find whitespace and duplicate accessions.
2. Define rules: `VP|` prefix, whitespace to underscores, deduplicate by ID and sequence.
3. Run curate_fasta.py with --prefix VP --deduplicate both.
4. Validate: record counts match the report (input = retained + removed),
   no whitespace in headers, every record parses and is non-empty.
5. Report statistics from seqkit stats -a and the deduplication report.

Troubleshooting

Whitespace in Headers

Problem: BLAST/MMseqs2 truncate at first whitespace Solution: Replace spaces with underscores or pipes

Duplicate IDs

Problem: Same accession from different sources Solution: Add source prefix to disambiguate

Invalid Characters

Problem: Non-standard amino acid codes Solution: Replace with X or remove sequences

Mixed Case Sequences

Problem: Inconsistent case in sequences Solution: Standardize to uppercase