nextSSR 🚀

nextSSR is a next-generation, high-performance, standalone Simple Sequence Repeat (SSR / microsatellite) identification and PCR primer design platform written in Python. It provides ultra-fast parallel CPU multi-processing, optional CUDA GPU hardware acceleration, low-memory streaming, automated PCR primer design, and complete FAIR compliance (W3C RO-Crate JSON-LD provenance and Sequence Ontology GFF3 annotations).

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🌟 Key Features

• ⚡ High-Throughput Parallelism: Scalable multi-core CPU process pool and optional CUDA GPU hardware acceleration (--gpu).
• 💾 Low Memory Footprint: Streaming FASTA generator allows analyzing multi-gigabyte genomes with minimal RAM usage.
• 🧬 Automated PCR Primer Design: Integrated thermodynamic primer design engine (SantaLucia 1998 Nearest-Neighbor & C-Primer3 support) for designing $T_m$-optimized primer pairs ($100-300\text{ bp}$ amplicons) ready for laboratory synthesis.
• 🏷️ Weber (1990) & Motif Classification: Categorizes SSRs by unit size (mono to hexanucleotide) and Weber structure (Perfect, Imperfect, Compound Perfect, and Compound Disrupted).
• 🌐 FAIR Compliant (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable): Produces Sequence Ontology (SO:0000289 and SO:0001061) annotations in GFF3 and full W3C RO-Crate (ro-crate-metadata.json) execution provenance.
• 🎨 Rich Terminal UI & Artifact Management: Interactive progress bars, formatted summary tables, YAML configuration support (nextssr init-config), and structured output artifact folders.
• 🔬 Reproducibility & Replicability: Includes Dockerfile and Apptainer/Singularity manifests for 100% deterministic workflow execution in HPC and Cloud environments.

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📦 Installation

Option 1: Via PyPI

pip install nextssr

Option 2: Via Conda / Bioconda

conda install -c bioconda nextssr
# or using mamba
mamba install -c bioconda nextssr

Option 3: From Source (GitHub)

git clone https://github.com/LaBiOmicS/nextSSR.git
cd nextSSR

# Install in editable mode
pip install -e .

Option 4: Docker Container

docker build -t nextssr .
docker run --rm -v $(pwd):/data nextssr /data/genome.fasta -o /data/results

Option 5: Apptainer / Singularity (HPC Environments)

apptainer build nextssr.sif Apptainer.def
apptainer run nextssr.sif genome.fasta -o results/

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🚀 Quick Start & Usage

Basic Execution

# Run SSR identification and primer design on a FASTA file
nextssr genome.fasta -o results/

# Or run using Python module syntax
python -m nextssr genome.fasta -o results/

Advanced Execution Options

# Run with 16 parallel CPU workers and custom primer parameters
nextssr genome.fasta -o results/ --threads 16 --opt-tm 60.0 --min-product-size 100 --max-product-size 250

# Run with GPU hardware acceleration
nextssr genome.fasta -o results/ --gpu

# Generate default YAML configuration file
nextssr init-config -o nextssr.yaml

# Run using custom YAML configuration file
nextssr genome.fasta -c nextssr.yaml -o results/

🧬 In Silico e-PCR Simulation

Validate PCR primers electronically against target genomes or transcriptomes with mismatch detection and amplicon sizing:

# Test a specific pair of Forward and Reverse primers against a target genome
nextssr epcr -f genome.fasta -F GATTACAAGCTACG -R ACGTACGTACGT -o epcr_amplicons.tsv

# Or test all primers designed in a nextSSR TSV report allowing up to 2 mismatches
nextssr epcr -f genome.fasta -p results/primers/nextssr_primers.tsv -m 2 -o epcr_batch.tsv

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📂 Project Structure

nextSSR/
├── pyproject.toml         # Packaging, metadata & dependencies (PEP 621)
├── MANIFEST.in            # Package distribution manifest
├── README.md              # Documentation
├── LICENSE                # MIT License
├── Dockerfile             # Containerized reproducible execution
├── Apptainer.def          # HPC Singularity / Apptainer definition
├── recipe/                # Conda / Bioconda packaging recipe
│   ├── build.sh
│   └── meta.yaml
├── .github/               # GitHub workflows & templates
│   ├── workflows/
│   │   ├── ci.yml         # GitHub Actions CI matrix
│   │   ├── pypi-publish.yml # Automatic PyPI release workflow
│   │   └── conda-build.yml  # Conda build verification workflow
│   ├── ISSUE_TEMPLATE/
│   └── PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE.md
├── nextssr/               # Main package source
│   ├── __init__.py
│   ├── __main__.py        # Package execution entrypoint (python -m nextssr)
│   ├── cli.py             # Rich CLI interface (Click + Rich)
│   ├── config.py          # Configuration management (YAML / JSON / INI)
│   ├── models.py          # Dataclasses (SSRItem, CompoundSSR, SequenceAnalysisResult)
│   ├── finder.py          # Core multi-parallel SSR detection engine
│   ├── compound.py        # Compound microsatellite grouping logic
│   ├── primer.py          # PCR Primer Design engine
│   ├── gpu.py             # GPU hardware acceleration module (CuPy/CUDA)
│   ├── artifacts.py       # Artifact Manager for structured output directory
│   ├── utils.py           # Memory-efficient FASTA streaming utilities
│   ├── provenance.py      # FAIR RO-Crate JSON-LD exporter
│   └── outputs/           # Output formatters
│       ├── __init__.py
│       ├── gff3.py        # Sequence Ontology compliant GFF3 exporter
│       ├── tsv.py         # Tab-delimited TSV exporter
│       └── json_fmt.py    # JSON exporter
└── tests/                 # Unit & integration test suite

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⚙️ Configuration File (nextssr.yaml)

nextSSR can be configured via a clean YAML file generated with nextssr init-config:

nextssr:
  version: 0.1.0
  ssr_criteria:
    unit_min_repeats:
      '1': 10
      '2': 6
      '3': 5
      '4': 5
      '5': 5
      '6': 5
    max_compound_distance: 100
  performance:
    threads: 16
    use_gpu: false
    batch_size: 1000
  primer_design:
    enabled: true
    flank_length_bp: 150
    optimal_tm_celsius: 58.0
    min_tm_celsius: 50.0
    max_tm_celsius: 65.0
    min_product_size_bp: 100
    max_product_size_bp: 300
  fair_and_outputs:
    output_gff3: true
    output_tsv: true
    generate_ro_crate: true

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🧬 Supported Classifications

1. Motif Size Classification (Motif_Class)

• mononucleotide (1 bp)
• dinucleotide (2 bp)
• trinucleotide (3 bp)
• tetranucleotide (4 bp)
• pentanucleotide (5 bp)
• hexanucleotide (6 bp)

2. Weber (1990) Structural Classification (Weber_Classification)

• Perfect: Uninterrupted repeat of a single motif (e.g., (AC)8).
• Imperfect: A single motif repeat containing 1-3 mismatching bases.
• Compound Perfect: Two distinct motifs immediately adjacent with 0 bp gap (e.g., (AC)5(AT)6).
• Compound Disrupted: Two distinct motifs separated by a gap of 1 to $N\text{ bp}$.

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📁 Output Artifacts Directory Layout

Every nextSSR run produces a structured artifact directory:

results/
├── annotations/
│   └── nextssr_results.gff3         # Sequence Ontology GFF3 annotation
├── primers/
│   └── nextssr_primers.tsv          # TSV report with PCR Primers & Weber classes
├── provenance/
│   └── ro-crate-metadata.json       # W3C RO-Crate FAIR JSON-LD metadata
├── summary/
│   └── nextssr_summary_statistics.txt # Summary text report
└── run_manifest.json                # Global execution JSON manifest

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🌐 FAIR Compliance & Sequence Ontology

nextSSR output complies with FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) principles:

• GFF3 Annotations: Uses official Sequence Ontology (SO) terms:
  • SO:0000289 (microsatellite)
  • SO:0001061 (compound_microsatellite)
• Execution Provenance: Generates W3C RO-Crate (ro-crate-metadata.json) recording input file SHA-256 hash, configuration hash, environment details, and execution timestamp.

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🧪 Testing Suite

Run end-to-end integration tests using pytest:

pytest -v

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✉️ Author & Contact

• Author: Fabiano Menegidio
• Email: labiomics@bioinformatica.com.br
• GitHub: https://github.com/LaBiOmicS/nextSSR

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📜 Citation

If you use nextSSR in your research or software pipelines, please cite the repository:

@misc{menegidio2026nextssr,
  author = {Menegidio, Fabiano},
  title = {nextSSR: High-Performance & FAIR-Compliant Simple Sequence Repeat Mining Engine},
  year = {2026},
  publisher = {GitHub},
  howpublished = {\url{https://github.com/LaBiOmicS/nextSSR}}
}

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📄 License

Distributed under the MIT License. See LICENSE for more information.