pgen-samplebind 0.1.0

Bind PFILE/BFILE/EIGENSTRAT genotype datasets sharing a variant set; the missing plink2 --pmerge case for ancient-DNA / population-genetics workflows.

pgen-samplebind

A focused CLI for the one thing plink2 --pmerge doesn't yet do: bind two or more PFILE/BFILE/EIGENSTRAT genotype datasets that share a variant set but contain different samples. Targeted at the ancient-DNA / population-genetics community working with the 1240k SNP capture panel and downstream AdmixTools 2 / qpAdm pipelines.

pgen-samplebind merge panel_a panel_b -o merged

That's it for the happy path. Variant alignment, strand canonicalization, ambiguous-strand policy, missing-call fill, IID collision handling, pseudohaploid detection, population-label preservation, and report emission all run with one command.

Why this exists

plink2 --pmerge errors with "under development" for the non-concatenating case (same variants, different samples). Today's workarounds — plink1.9 --bmerge, EIGENSOFT's mergeit, or VCF round-trips through bcftools merge — each carry friction (deprecated tool, format-conversion overhead, single-thread C engine, multi-format hops). The AdmixTools / ancient-DNA community spends nontrivial time on this every panel build.

pgen-samplebind is a stopgap until plink2 lands the feature natively; it's deliberately scoped to the bind operation only — not a plink2 replacement.

Install

pip install pgen-samplebind

Requires Python 3.11 or 3.12. For EIGENSTRAT or BFILE inputs, also install plink2 v2.0.0-a.7.1 or newer and put it on PATH:

# Linux / macOS — direct binary from the upstream release
curl -fsSL https://github.com/chrchang/plink-ng/releases/download/v2.0.0-a.7.1/plink2_linux_x86_64.zip -o /tmp/plink2.zip
unzip /tmp/plink2.zip -d ~/bin
plink2 --version  # confirm v2.0.0-a.7.1 (or newer) on PATH

The v2.0.0-a.7.x line introduced the --eigfile/--export eig support pgen-samplebind shells out to; older versions including v2.00a5.x (still shipped by Homebrew at the time of this writing) will silently lack EIGENSTRAT support. PFILE-only workflows have no plink2 dependency.

Canonical use cases

Four workflows the tool is shaped around. Each is one command.

1. Panel extension

Existing AADR-derived panel (~700 samples × ~1.15M 1240k variants), add new populations from a newer AADR release. Variants identical, alleles canonical (same source).

pgen-samplebind merge \
    /data/aadr_v66_phase6 \
    /data/aadr_v66_new_pops \
    -o /data/aadr_v66_phase7 \
    --report phase7_bind_report.tsv

2. Single-sample target append

A user's WGS pseudohaploid genotypes (from pileupCaller --randomDiploid) merged into an AADR-derived panel for downstream qpAdm. The user is missing some panel sites (low-coverage regions) — the tool emits missing-call codes for them, doesn't drop the variants. --target activates the asymmetric strand-check + per-sample call-rate gate (default 0.40).

pgen-samplebind merge \
    --target /data/carsten_pileupcaller \
    /data/aadr_v66_subset \
    -o /data/aadr_with_carsten

3. Cross-source merge (different formats, different strand conventions)

Two cohort releases from different labs — one in EIGENSTRAT, one in PFILE — both built on 1240k. Strand canonicalization may differ; ambiguous A/T and C/G SNPs may need explicit policy.

pgen-samplebind merge \
    /data/cohort_a.geno_prefix \
    /data/cohort_b \
    -o /data/cohort_ab \
    --on-strand flip \
    --validate-strand-fail-pct 10

4. AADR cross-version cohort assembly

Recreating a published cohort using AADR v66 genotypes (more SNPs) requires mapping v44.3 sample IDs to v66 sample IDs through the Master-ID join — AADR de-anonymized many samples between releases (I0001 became Loschbour.AG, etc.). Sample-bind plus identity remapping, one step.

pgen-samplebind merge \
    /data/aadr_v44_3_panel \
    /data/aadr_v66_extras \
    --id-column 'Master ID' \
    --relabel-from /data/aadr_v66.anno \
    --relabel-input-col 'Master ID' \
    --relabel-output-col 'Group ID' \
    -o /data/cross_version_panel

Subcommands

pgen-samplebind merge     INPUT [INPUT ...] -o OUTPUT [options]
pgen-samplebind validate  INPUT [INPUT ...]                [options]
pgen-samplebind hash      INPUT
pgen-samplebind inspect   INPUT

Inputs are PFILE/BFILE/EIGENSTRAT prefixes; format auto-detected from companion files (.pgen+.pvar+.psam / .bed+.bim+.fam / .geno+.snp+.ind).

merge — bind inputs into one output PFILE

Option	Default	Purpose
-o, --out PREFIX	required	Output PFILE prefix
--target PATH	none	Single-sample / small-cohort mode; activates asymmetric strand-check + call-rate gate. Appended as last input; canonical remains input[0]
--variant-key {chr_pos|id}	chr_pos	Match key
--on-mismatch {drop|error}	drop	Allele mismatch beyond resolution
--on-missing {fill_missing|drop_variant|error}	fill_missing	Variant in input[0] absent in input N
--on-extra {warn|drop|error}	warn	Variant in input N absent from input[0]
--on-strand {drop|flip|error}	flip	Strand mismatch on unambiguous SNPs
--trust-strand	off	Pass A/T and C/G ambiguous SNPs without flagging (footgun for cross-source panels)
--on-collision {error|first|suffix}	error	IID collision policy. suffix uses _<input_idx> (general) / _target (target mode) with idempotent numeric retry
--id-column NAME	IID	.psam column for identity ops (e.g., 'Master ID' for AADR anno)
--population-column NAME	auto	Holds population labels (default: POP / PHENO / PHENO1 fallback)
--target-min-call-rate FLOAT	0.40	Target-mode per-sample minimum call rate before exit-1
--validate-strand-fail-pct N	10.0	Exit 1 if ambiguous-strand drops exceed N% of intersection
--relabel-from FILE	none	TSV-driven POP relabel. 2-col header-less form maps POP→POP; N-col form (with --relabel-input-col / --relabel-output-col) joins per-sample on --id-column
--relabel-input-col NAME	none	For N-col TSVs: which column matches --id-column
--relabel-output-col NAME	none	For N-col TSVs: which column becomes the new POP value
--report PATH	none	Per-variant action TSV (streamed; constant memory)
--report-json PATH	none	Run-level summary JSON (~few KB; rows excluded by default)
--report-json-include-rows	off	Include per-variant rows in JSON (buffered; warns at >100 MB predicted size)
--quiet	off	Suppress progress to stdout
--threads N	1	Parallel input readers
--block-size N	2048	Variants per pgenlib read block

validate — check alignment without writing

Same alignment / strand options as merge. No output written; reports go to stdout plus optional --report / --report-json. Exits 0 if alignment OK, 1 if any of the gates below fires.

hash — emit canonical variant-set hash

pgen-samplebind hash /data/aadr_v66_subset
# 7c4f8e...  PFILE
pgen-samplebind hash /data/aadr_v66_subset.geno_prefix
# 7c4f8e...  EIGENSTRAT  ← same hash → format-equivalent panels

--emit-canonical prints the canonicalized bytestream that's hashed (for diagnosis when two inputs should match but don't).

inspect — structured summary of one input

Format, sample count, variant count, populations, pseudohaploid mix, sex distribution, missingness histogram. TSV by default; --json for machine-readable.

Validation gates (exit 1)

Both merge and validate apply the same soft-validation gates and exit 1 if any fires:

• (a) Extras above warn threshold. Variants in input[N] absent from input[0] exceed the --on-extra warn threshold (10% of input[0] by default). Catches the input-order-reversed failure mode (smaller panel placed first; larger panel's distinct variants silently dropped).
• (b) Ambiguous-strand drops above intersection threshold. Drops due to A/T or C/G allele ambiguity exceed --validate-strand-fail-pct of the alignment intersection (10% by default). Intersection denominator is deliberate: catches the wrong-panel failure mode (tiny intersection × 30% drop rate) that a canonical denominator would silently hide.
• (c) Target call rate below threshold. In --target mode, target's non-missing call count over canonical variants is below --target-min-call-rate.
• (d) --on-* error policy would have triggered (validate mode only). In merge mode those policies still exit 3 — explicit invariant enforcement is honored.

For merge, gates (a)-(c) run between pass 1 (alignment) and pass 2 (genotype streaming) — failing fast saves the pass-2 wallclock for an alignment that wouldn't have validated.

Exit codes

Stable across versions; safe to script against.

Code	Meaning
0	Success
1	Validation failure — gate (a)/(b)/(c)/(d) fired
2	I/O failure — read/write failure, plink2 subprocess failed, advisory output-prefix lock held
3	Invariant violation — multi-allelic input, duplicate canonical variant keys, --on-* error policy triggered, --on-collision error on duplicate IIDs
4	Usage error — bad CLI argument combination, unknown input prefix

Concurrency

• Same input prefixes: safe, read-only.
• Same output prefix: tool advisory-locks {out}.lock via fcntl.flock; fails clearly with exit 2 if held; cleans up on success or signal.
• Cache directory: not managed by this tool — caller's problem.

The lock prevents two concurrent invocations from corrupting each other's output. It does not synchronize across machines (file lock is local-fs only). On NFS/SMB/CIFS the tool emits a stderr warning at acquire time since fcntl.flock semantics over network filesystems are implementation-defined and effectively no-op.

Performance

Expected throughput ~25-30 M genotypes/sec end-to-end on a typical Linux x86_64 machine (one core, default --block-size 2048). For a 700-sample × 1.15M-variant 1240k panel, plan on roughly 30-60 seconds wallclock including pass-1 alignment, pass-2 genotype rewrite, and .psam finalization.

--threads N parallelizes per-input readers; useful when binding 4+ inputs. Beyond N=4 the gains taper since pass 2 is single-writer-bound.

Troubleshooting

"plink2 not found, required for EIGENSTRAT input"

Install plink2 v2.0.0-a.7.1+ (see Install). PFILE-only workflows have no plink2 dependency.

"FID column header on line 1 is not at the beginning"

Symptom of an older plink2 reading our .psam output. We emit FID-first column order per the plink2 spec; if you see this from a downstream tool, verify the consumer is plink2 v2.0.0-a.7.x or newer. Earlier plink2 lines require --no-fid or an .fam-style fallback.

--target mode call-rate gate fires unexpectedly

Default threshold is 0.40 (40% of canonical variants called for the target sample). For very-low-coverage targets this may be too strict. Pass --target-min-call-rate 0.20 (or lower) if appropriate; with 0.0 the gate is fully disabled.

"ASCII per-line EIGENSTRAT" inputs

Both flavors of EIGENSTRAT input are supported: PACKEDANCESTRYMAP (binary, GENO /TGENO header — converted via plink2 --eigfile) and the older ASCII per-line variant (one digit per sample-variant cell — parsed natively, no plink2 dependency for the ASCII path). Format is auto-detected from the .geno header bytes.

Cross-source merges drop more variants than expected

By default A/T and C/G ambiguous SNPs are dropped wherever strand cannot be verified — including the case where both inputs have the same allele pair (e.g., both have A/T at the same position). The strand cannot be proven the same because complementing A/T gives T/A which is the same pair. This matches mergeit's strandcheck: YES convention and is the safe default for cross-source merges (different cohorts, different processing pipelines).

For single-source merges where REF/ALT calls are guaranteed consistent across inputs (same AADR release, same conversion pipeline), pass --trust-strand to passthrough matching ambiguous variants. The 1240k panel has ~1.3% A/T+C/G matching ambiguous SNPs so this typically recovers 10-20K additional variants on a full 1.15M-variant panel.

"ambiguous-strand drops exceed 10% of intersection"

Gate (b) fired. Three common causes:

1. Wrong panel pairing: tiny intersection × normal drop rate computes as a high fraction of intersection. Run pgen-samplebind hash on each input — if the hashes differ unexpectedly, the panels aren't what you thought they were.
2. Different strand conventions: cross-source merges where one source already strand-flipped at A/T+C/G sites.
3. Legitimate but high A/T+C/G fraction: 1240k naturally has ~5-8% ambiguous; a panel restricted to ambiguous-only sites would push above 10%. Raise the threshold with --validate-strand-fail-pct 20 if that's your case, or use --trust-strand for explicit pass-through (footgun warning: silently passes potentially-flipped genotypes).

Half-built output files after a failure

Don't happen. The merge orchestrator wraps pass 2 + .psam finalization in a try/except that unlinks the .pgen/.pvar/.psam triplet on any tool-internal exception, so downstream pipelines never silently consume a partial output. (Atomic-rename across the triplet isn't actually atomic on NFS — three separate file ops — so unlink-on-failure is the safer default.)

Output prefix is locked by another pgen-samplebind process

Another invocation holds the lock at {prefix}.lock. If that process has died (kill -9, OOM, lost terminal), the lock file persists and you must remove it manually:

ls -la /data/merged.lock     # check lock-file age vs. expected runtime
rm /data/merged.lock         # only after confirming no live process holds it

Status

v0.1.0 — initial release. End-to-end byte-equal qpAdm parity proven against the established mergeit + plink2 + awk pipeline on the Track E Phase 7 panel build (Reich-Lab-style ancient-DNA workflow with EIGENSTRAT panel + brit_subset + single-sample target append; md5-identical proximal qpAdm shootout output).

See CHANGELOG.md for the full feature list and known limitations.

Contributing

Issues and pull requests welcome at https://github.com/carstenerickson/pgen-samplebind/issues. The project is small and opinionated; substantive scope changes (e.g., multi-allelic merges, dosage data, BFILE output) should start with a design discussion before implementation.

License

MIT.