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jerryji1993

DNABERT

DNABERT: pre-trained Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers model for DNA-language in genome.

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Key parameters and specifications
Key parameters and specifications
ParameterValue
LanguagePython
CategoryModels
SubcategoryDomain-specific models
KeywordsBiomedical
Stars780
Forks180
Contributors5
Created date2020-06-11
Updated date2026-10-01
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Stars in 7 days0
Rank13,898
Previous rank13,783
Rank change-115
7-day stars rank14,174
Previous 7-day stars rank14,193
7-day stars rank change19
Total stars rank13,628
Previous total stars rank13,610
Total stars rank change-18
CountryUSA
README summary

DNABERT This repository includes the implementation of 'DNABERT: pre-trained Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers model for DNA-language in genome'. Please cite our paper if you use the models or codes. The repo is still actively under development, so please kindly report if there is any issue encountered. In this package, we provides resources including: source codes of the DNABERT model, usage examples, pre-trained models, fine-tuned models and visulization tool. This package is still under development, as

more features will be included gradually. Training of DNABERT consists of general-purposed pre-training and task-specific fine-tuning. As a contribution of our project, we released the pre-trained models in this repository. We extended codes from huggingface and adapted them to the DNA scenario. Update 2025/07/08 The original links to the pretrained DNABERT models (DNABERT-3, 4, 5, 6) have expired. Please go to HuggingFace to access and download the models: DNABERT-3: DNABERT-4

: DNABERT-5: DNABERT-6: Update 2023/06/26 The second generation of DNABERT, named DNABERT-2, is publically available at DNABERT-2 is trained on multi-species genomes and is more efficient, powerful, and easy to use than its first generation. We also provide simpler usage of DNABERT in the new package. A comprehensive benchmark Genome Understanding Evaluation (GUE), which contains $28$ datasets on $7$ tasks, is also published. Please check out DNABERT-2 if you are interested in our

work. Citation If you have used DNABERT in your research, please kindly cite the following publications: 1. Environment setup We recommend you to build a python virtual environment with Anaconda. Also, please make sure you have at least one NVIDIA GPU with Linux x86_64 Driver Version >= 410. We applied distributed training on 8 NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti with 11 GB graphic memory, and the batch size corresponds to it. If you use GPU with other specifications and memory

sizes, consider adjusting your batch size accordingly. 1 Create and activate a new virtual environment 1. 2 Install the package and other requirements (Required) (Optional, install apex for fp16 training) change to a desired directory by 2. Pre-train (Skip this section if you fine-tune on pre-trained models) 2. 1 Data processing Please see the template data at . If you are trying to pre-train DNABERT with your own data, please process you data into the same format

as it. Note that the sequences are in kmer format, so you will need to convert your sequences into that. We also provide a custom function in for this conversion. In the following example, we use DNABERT with kmer=6 as example. (You have to install the 'apex' from source first). Fine-tune (Skip this section if you use fine-tuned model) 3. 1 Data processing Please see the template data at . If you are trying to fine-tune DNABERT

with your own data, please process you data into the same format as it. Note that the sequences are in

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README

DNABERT

This repository includes the implementation of 'DNABERT: pre-trained Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers model for DNA-language in genome'. Please cite our paper if you use the models or codes. The repo is still actively under development, so please kindly report if there is any issue encountered.

In this package, we provides resources including: source codes of the DNABERT model, usage examples, pre-trained models, fine-tuned models and visulization tool. This package is still under development, as more features will be included gradually. Training of DNABERT consists of general-purposed pre-training and task-specific fine-tuning. As a contribution of our project, we released the pre-trained models in this repository. We extended codes from huggingface and adapted them to the DNA scenario.

Update 2025/07/08

The original links to the pretrained DNABERT models (DNABERT-3, 4, 5, 6) have expired. Please go to HuggingFace to access and download the models:

DNABERT-3: https://huggingface.co/zhihan1996/DNA_bert_3 DNABERT-4: https://huggingface.co/zhihan1996/DNA_bert_4 DNABERT-5: https://huggingface.co/zhihan1996/DNA_bert_5 DNABERT-6: https://huggingface.co/zhihan1996/DNA_bert_6

Update 2023/06/26

The second generation of DNABERT, named DNABERT-2, is publically available at https://github.com/Zhihan1996/DNABERT_2. DNABERT-2 is trained on multi-species genomes and is more efficient, powerful, and easy to use than its first generation. We also provide simpler usage of DNABERT in the new package. A comprehensive benchmark Genome Understanding Evaluation (GUE), which contains $28$ datasets on $7$ tasks, is also published. Please check out DNABERT-2 if you are interested in our work. Thanks!

Citation

If you have used DNABERT in your research, please kindly cite the following publications:

@article{ji2021dnabert,
    author = {Ji, Yanrong and Zhou, Zhihan and Liu, Han and Davuluri, Ramana V},
    title = "{DNABERT: pre-trained Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers model for DNA-language in genome}",
    journal = {Bioinformatics},
    volume = {37},
    number = {15},
    pages = {2112-2120},
    year = {2021},
    month = {02},
    issn = {1367-4803},
    doi = {10.1093/bioinformatics/btab083},
    url = {https://doi.org/10.1093/bioinformatics/btab083},
    eprint = {https://academic.oup.com/bioinformatics/article-pdf/37/15/2112/50578892/btab083.pdf},
}


@misc{zhou2023dnabert2,
      title={DNABERT-2: Efficient Foundation Model and Benchmark For Multi-Species Genome}, 
      author={Zhihan Zhou and Yanrong Ji and Weijian Li and Pratik Dutta and Ramana Davuluri and Han Liu},
      year={2023},
      eprint={2306.15006},
      archivePrefix={arXiv},
      primaryClass={q-bio.GN}
}

1. Environment setup

We recommend you to build a python virtual environment with Anaconda. Also, please make sure you have at least one NVIDIA GPU with Linux x86_64 Driver Version >= 410.48 (compatible with CUDA 10.0). We applied distributed training on 8 NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti with 11 GB graphic memory, and the batch size corresponds to it. If you use GPU with other specifications and memory sizes, consider adjusting your batch size accordingly.

1.1 Create and activate a new virtual environment

conda create -n dnabert python=3.6
conda activate dnabert

1.2 Install the package and other requirements

(Required)

conda install pytorch torchvision cudatoolkit=10.0 -c pytorch

git clone https://github.com/jerryji1993/DNABERT
cd DNABERT
python3 -m pip install --editable .
cd examples
python3 -m pip install -r requirements.txt

(Optional, install apex for fp16 training)

change to a desired directory by cd PATH_NAME

git clone https://github.com/NVIDIA/apex
cd apex
pip install -v --no-cache-dir --global-option="--cpp_ext" --global-option="--cuda_ext" ./

2. Pre-train (Skip this section if you fine-tune on pre-trained models)

2.1 Data processing

Please see the template data at /example/sample_data/pre. If you are trying to pre-train DNABERT with your own data, please process you data into the same format as it. Note that the sequences are in kmer format, so you will need to convert your sequences into that. We also provide a custom function seq2kmerin motif/motif_utils.py for this conversion.

In the following example, we use DNABERT with kmer=6 as example.

2.2 Model Training

cd examples

export KMER=6
export TRAIN_FILE=sample_data/pre/6_3k.txt
export TEST_FILE=sample_data/pre/6_3k.txt
export SOURCE=PATH_TO_DNABERT_REPO
export OUTPUT_PATH=output$KMER

python run_pretrain.py \
    --output_dir $OUTPUT_PATH \
    --model_type=dna \
    --tokenizer_name=dna$KMER \
    --config_name=$SOURCE/src/transformers/dnabert-config/bert-config-$KMER/config.json \
    --do_train \
    --train_data_file=$TRAIN_FILE \
    --do_eval \
    --eval_data_file=$TEST_FILE \
    --mlm \
    --gradient_accumulation_steps 25 \
    --per_gpu_train_batch_size 10 \
    --per_gpu_eval_batch_size 6 \
    --save_steps 500 \
    --save_total_limit 20 \
    --max_steps 200000 \
    --evaluate_during_training \
    --logging_steps 500 \
    --line_by_line \
    --learning_rate 4e-4 \
    --block_size 512 \
    --adam_epsilon 1e-6 \
    --weight_decay 0.01 \
    --beta1 0.9 \
    --beta2 0.98 \
    --mlm_probability 0.025 \
    --warmup_steps 10000 \
    --overwrite_output_dir \
    --n_process 24

Add --fp16 tag if you want to perfrom mixed precision. (You have to install the 'apex' from source first).

3. Fine-tune (Skip this section if you use fine-tuned model)

3.1 Data processing

Please see the template data at /example/sample_data/ft/. If you are trying to fine-tune DNABERT with your own data, please process you data into the same format as it. Note that the sequences are in kmer format, so you will need to convert your sequences into that. We also provide a custom function seq2kmerin motif/motif_utils.py for this conversion.

3.2 Download pre-trained DNABERT

DNABERT3

DNABERT4

DNABERT5

DNABERT6

Download the pre-trained model in to a directory. (If you would like to replicate the following examples, please download DNABERT 6). Then unzip the package by running:

unzip 6-new-12w-0.zip

We also provide a model with KMER=6 that is fine-tuned on the sample dataset for prediction/visulization/motif_analysis. If you use the fine-tuned model instead of fine-tuning a model by your self, please download the fine-tuned and put it under examples/ft/6.

Fine-tuned Model

3.3 Fine-tune with pre-trained model

In the following example, we use DNABERT with kmer=6 as example. We use prom-core, a 2-class classification task as example.

cd examples

export KMER=6
export MODEL_PATH=PATH_TO_THE_PRETRAINED_MODEL
export DATA_PATH=sample_data/ft/$KMER
export OUTPUT_PATH=./ft/$KMER

python run_finetune.py \
    --model_type dna \
    --tokenizer_name=dna$KMER \
    --model_name_or_path $MODEL_PATH \
    --task_name dnaprom \
    --do_train \
    --do_eval \
    --data_dir $DATA_PATH \
    --max_seq_length 100 \
    --per_gpu_eval_batch_size=32   \
    --per_gpu_train_batch_size=32   \
    --learning_rate 2e-4 \
    --num_train_epochs 5.0 \
    --output_dir $OUTPUT_PATH \
    --evaluate_during_training \
    --logging_steps 100 \
    --save_steps 4000 \
    --warmup_percent 0.1 \
    --hidden_dropout_prob 0.1 \
    --overwrite_output \
    --weight_decay 0.01 \
    --n_process 8

Add --fp16 tag if you want to perfrom mixed precision. (You have to install the 'apex' from source first).

We also provide a model with KMER=6 that is fine-tuned on the sample dataset for prediction/visulization/motif_analysis. If you use the fine-tuned model instead of fine-tuning a model by your self, please download the fine-tuned and put it under examples/ft/6.

Fine-tuned Model

4. Prediction

After the model is fine-tuned, we can get predictions by running

export KMER=6
export MODEL_PATH=./ft/$KMER
export DATA_PATH=sample_data/ft/$KMER
export PREDICTION_PATH=./result/$KMER

python run_finetune.py \
    --model_type dna \
    --tokenizer_name=dna$KMER \
    --model_name_or_path $MODEL_PATH \
    --task_name dnaprom \
    --do_predict \
    --data_dir $DATA_PATH  \
    --max_seq_length 75 \
    --per_gpu_pred_batch_size=128   \
    --output_dir $MODEL_PATH \
    --predict_dir $PREDICTION_PATH \
    --n_process 48

With the above command, the fine-tuned DNABERT model will be loaded from MODEL_PATH , and makes prediction on the dev.tsv file that saved in DATA_PATH and save the prediction result at PREDICTION_PATH.

Add --fp16 tag if you want to perfrom mixed precision. (You have to install the 'apex' from source first).

5. Visualization

Visualiazation of DNABERT consists of 2 steps. Calcualate attention scores and Plot.

5.1 Calculate attention scores

calculate with only one model (For example, DNABERT6)

export KMER=6
export MODEL_PATH=./ft/$KMER
export DATA_PATH=sample_data/ft/$KMER
export PREDICTION_PATH=./result/$KMER

python run_finetune.py \
    --model_type dna \
    --tokenizer_name=dna$KMER \
    --model_name_or_path $MODEL_PATH \
    --task_name dnaprom \
    --do_visualize \
    --visualize_data_dir $DATA_PATH \
    --visualize_models $KMER \
    --data_dir $DATA_PATH \
    --max_seq_length 81 \
    --per_gpu_pred_batch_size=16   \
    --output_dir $MODEL_PATH \
    --predict_dir $PREDICTION_PATH \
    --n_process 96

With the above command, the fine-tuned DNABERT model will be loaded from MODEL_PATH , and calculates attention scores on the dev.tsv file that saved in DATA_PATH and save the result at PREDICTION_PATH.

Add --fp16 tag if you want to perfrom mixed precision. (You have to install the 'apex' from source first).

####5.2 Plotting tool

6. Motif analysis

Once the attention scores are generated, we can proceed further to perform motif analysis using motif/find_motifs.py:

cd ../motif

export KMER=6
export DATA_PATH=../examples/sample_data/ft/$KMER
export PREDICTION_PATH=../examples/result/$KMER
export MOTIF_PATH=./result/$KMER

python find_motifs.py \
    --data_dir $DATA_PATH \
    --predict_dir $PREDICTION_PATH \
    --window_size 24 \
    --min_len 5 \
    --pval_cutoff 0.005 \
    --min_n_motif 3 \
    --align_all_ties \
    --save_file_dir $MOTIF_PATH \
    --verbose

The script will generate a .txt file and a weblogo .png file for each motif under MOTIF_PATH.

7. Genomic variants analysis

To perform genomic variants analysis (e.g. SNPs), we need to first ensure the predictions for the sequences were generated. Then, create a file (template in SNP/example_mut_file.txt) specifying for which sequences in dev.tsv and start and end indices where we need to perform the mutation. The first column indicates the index of sequence in dev.tsv to be mutated. Second and third columns are the start and end indices while the fourth column is the target of mutation (can be substitution, insertion, deletion, etc.)

Once such a file is created, we can perform mutation on the sequences:

cd ../SNP
python mutate_seqs.py ./../examples/sample_data/ft/6/dev.tsv ./examples/ --mut_file ./example_mut_file.txt --k 6

Alternatively, we can choose to leave the --mut_file argument blank, where the program would try to perform substitution of all bases to the four possible nucleotides ('A', 'T', 'C', or 'G') for all sequences. This would be useful for plotting a mutation heatmap as included in the paper. Note that this would be slow if the dev.tsv contains a lot of sequences or the input sequences are very long, as the command would try to perform mutation on all possible locations of them.

cd ../SNP
python mutate_seqs.py ./../examples/sample_data/ft/6/dev.tsv ./examples/ --k 6

After that, we can again predict on the generated sequences. Note: if you have insertion/deletions in your mut_file.txt, consider changing the max_seq_length we use when making predictions.

export KMER=6
export MODEL_PATH=../examples/ft/$KMER
export DATA_PATH=examples
export PREDICTION_PATH=examples

python ../examples/run_finetune.py \
    --model_type dna \
    --tokenizer_name=dna$KMER \
    --model_name_or_path $MODEL_PATH \
    --task_name dnaprom \
    --do_predict \
    --data_dir $DATA_PATH  \
    --max_seq_length 75 \
    --per_gpu_pred_batch_size=128   \
    --output_dir $MODEL_PATH \
    --predict_dir $PREDICTION_PATH \
    --n_process 48

This will again create pred_results.npy file under the $PREDICTION_PATH. Once we have all the above, we can compute the effect of these mutations by:

python SNP.py \
    --orig_seq_file ../examples/sample_data/ft/6/dev.tsv \
    --orig_pred_file ../examples/result/6/pred_results.npy \
    --mut_seq_file examples/dev.tsv \
    --mut_pred_file examples/pred_results.npy \
    --save_file_dir examples

This would save a mutations.tsv file under save_file_dir, that contains index of original sequence (in original dev.tsv), original sequence and predictions, mutated sequence and predictions, as well as the difference score and log odds ratio of the change in every case.

Q&A

1. I cannot start training the model/I have installation issues for the dependencies.

Please kindly make sure that you satisfied all system requirements for DNABERT, and that you have a conda environment properly set up. We have recently successfully tested our pipeline on Amazon EC2 Deep Learning AMI (Ubuntu 18.04). As an option, you could compare your system/environment setup with this AMI.

2. Can DNABERT run on sequences longer than 512?

3. Can DNABERT be extended to multi-class classification?

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