JACKS (Joint Analysis of CRISPR/Cas9 Knockout Screens) for modeling sgRNA efficacy and gene essentiality. Use when analyzing multiple CRISPR screens simultaneously or when accounting for variable sgRNA efficiency across experiments.
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Python: pip show <package> then help(module.function) to check signatures
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If code throws ImportError, AttributeError, or TypeError, introspect the installed
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JACKS CRISPR Screen Analysis
"Analyze multiple CRISPR screens jointly with JACKS" → Model sgRNA efficacy and gene essentiality simultaneously across multiple screens, accounting for variable guide efficiency.
Python: jacks.infer_JACKS() for joint analysis across experiments
JACKS jointly models sgRNA efficacy and gene essentiality across multiple experiments. It infers both gene-level fitness effects and sgRNA-specific efficiency.
Installation
pip install jacks
# or
git clone https://github.com/felicityallen/JACKS.git
cd JACKS && pip install -e .
Goal: Run JACKS joint analysis to simultaneously model sgRNA efficacy and gene essentiality across experiments.
Approach: Load count data, guide-gene mapping, and replicate map; separate control and treatment samples; then run MCMC inference to estimate gene fitness effects and per-sgRNA efficiency.
from jacks import infer
import pandas as pd
# Load data
counts = pd.read_csv('counts.txt', sep='\t', index_col=0)
guide_gene_map = pd.read_csv('guidemap.txt', sep='\t', header=None, names=['sgRNA', 'Gene'])
replicate_map = pd.read_csv('replicatemap.txt', sep='\t', header=None,
names=['Sample', 'Experiment', 'Condition'])
# Separate control and treatment samples
ctrl_samples = replicate_map[replicate_map['Condition'] == 'Day0']['Sample'].tolist()
treatment_samples = replicate_map[replicate_map['Condition'] == 'Day14']['Sample'].tolist()
# Run JACKS inference
# n_iterations=10000: MCMC iterations. Increase for final analysis.
# burn_in=1000: Burn-in period. Should be ~10% of iterations.
jacks_results = infer.run_inference(
counts,
guide_gene_map,
treatment_samples,
ctrl_samples,
n_iterations=10000,
burn_in=1000
)
Output Files
File
Description
_gene_JACKS_results.txt
Gene-level essentiality scores
_grna_JACKS_results.txt
sgRNA-level efficacy estimates
_jacks_full_data.pickle
Full model for downstream analysis
Interpret Gene Results
Goal: Classify genes as essential or enriched from JACKS output scores.
Approach: Load the gene results table, filter by JACKS score direction and FDR significance, and rank to identify top essential (negative effect) and enriched (positive effect) genes.
Goal: Assess sgRNA performance to identify low-efficacy guides for library optimization.
Approach: Load per-sgRNA efficacy estimates from JACKS output, flag guides below an efficacy threshold, and aggregate by gene to evaluate library-level guide quality.
import pandas as pd
# Load sgRNA results
guides = pd.read_csv('output_grna_JACKS_results.txt', sep='\t')
# Efficacy scores range from 0 (ineffective) to 1 (highly effective)
# X1 column contains efficacy estimates
# Identify poor sgRNAs
# efficacy<0.3: sgRNAs with low efficacy. Consider removal in future libraries.
poor_guides = guides[guides['X1'] < 0.3]
print(f'Low efficacy guides: {len(poor_guides)}')
# Group by gene to assess library quality
gene_efficacy = guides.groupby('Gene')['X1'].agg(['mean', 'std', 'count'])
gene_efficacy = gene_efficacy.sort_values('mean')
print(gene_efficacy.head(20))
Visualization
Gene Effect Plot
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np
genes = pd.read_csv('output_gene_JACKS_results.txt', sep='\t')
fig, ax = plt.subplots(figsize=(10, 8))
# Color by significance
colors = ['red' if fdr < -1 else 'gray' for fdr in genes['fdr_log10']]
ax.scatter(genes['X1'], -genes['fdr_log10'], c=colors, alpha=0.5, s=10)
ax.axhline(1, linestyle='--', color='black', alpha=0.5) # FDR = 0.1
ax.axvline(0, linestyle='-', color='gray', alpha=0.3)
ax.set_xlabel('JACKS Score (negative = essential)')
ax.set_ylabel('-log10(FDR)')
ax.set_title('JACKS Gene Essentiality')
# Label top hits
top = genes[genes['fdr_log10'] < -2].nsmallest(10, 'X1')
for _, row in top.iterrows():
ax.annotate(row['gene'], (row['X1'], -row['fdr_log10']))
plt.savefig('jacks_volcano.png', dpi=150)