unexpected output from efetch

Sorry for the bad title.

I am using efetch to programmatically retrieve protein sequences by using -id -chr_start and -chr_end. I am using efetch in loop but I noticed that I was getting more sequences than expected:

$ head coordinates

NZ_AJFJ01000034.1   85694   87193
NZ_AJFJ01000034.1   88084   89073
NZ_CP027541.1   2096426 2098054
NZ_SITV01000020.1   28544   30172
NZ_CP009496.1   2052819 2054447
NZ_SITZ01000020.1   110428  112056
NZ_SITQ01000020.1   110832  112460
NZ_SITX01000020.1   110428  112056

$ cat coordinates | while IFS=$'\t' read acn str stp
do
    echo $acn $str $stp
    efetch -db nuccore -format fasta_cds_aa -id "$acn" -chr_start "$str" -chr_stop "$stp" > $acn$str$stp.faa
done;

The coordinates I am using should give me back only one protein per line. However, for some set of coordinates I get two protein instead. I do not understand:

$ efetch -db nuccore -format fasta_cds_aa -id NZ_VMQU01000035.1 -chr_start 27743 -chr_stop 28750

>lcl|NZ_VMQU01000035.1_prot_WP_144950956.1_1 [locus_tag=FPZ47_RS10505] [protein=MmoB/DmpM family protein] [protein_id=WP_144950956.1] [location=complement(27456..27746)] [gbkey=CDS]
MTAAGVRKVGVDLQENSEDSRRIIEAIEADNPDCTVTHFPGLIKIQAPGQLVVRRETIEKLLSRPWETHE
FQMSIVTYYGNIQEWDDDEIVIAWDH
>lcl|NZ_VMQU01000035.1_prot_WP_144950958.1_2 [locus_tag=FPZ47_RS10510] [protein=phenol 2-monooxygenase] [protein_id=WP_144950958.1] [location=complement(27743..28750)] [gbkey=CDS]
MQYELRTQAIDPLRATFTPLVRRYGDKPATRYQEGTIDVQPVENFHYRPLWDSEREIYDERYSALRLTDP
YSFTDPRQYYYAPYVTARSQLFDAFAKTLDYVESRSLLANLPDAWRALAVSTLLPLRHYEGGAQLISSNG
ARFAYGTSIEQCLSFAAFDRIGNAQLLSRIGLALADGSAELLDQARGRWLGDEHLQPLRRFAEELLVEPD
WAVATVAWDVADQLIYQLVYQHLDKQALVSGASALSLLGQHLGDWFVDHRKWLNALIAAWLADAEHGPGN
AHVLRTTIDIWLPKATEAVSGLARAADEAADVGAVAAVERFVEQLRATTIEEKIA

Thank you!

efetch

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written 4.5 years ago by andres.firrincieli

1 answer

I believe that your result indicates that the coding regions for the proteins overlap

we can check with bio like so

bio fetch NZ_VMQU01000035 | bio gff --id WP_144950956.1,WP_144950958.1

prints:

##gff-version 3
NZ_VMQU01000035.1       .       CDS     27456   27746   .       -       .       ID=1;Name=WP_144950956.1;Parent=WP_144950956.1
NZ_VMQU01000035.1       .       CDS     27743   28750   .       -       .       ID=2;Name=WP_144950958.1;Parent=WP_144950958.1

indeed the two CDS overlap