UMI-VarCal: a new UMI-based variant caller that efficiently improves low-frequency variant detection in paired-end sequencing NGS libraries

Next-generation sequencing has become the go-to standard method for the detection of single-nucleotide variants in tumor cells. The use of such technologies requires a PCR amplification step and a sequencing step, steps in which artifacts are introduced at very low frequencies. These artifacts are often confused with true low-frequency variants that can be found in tumor cells and cell-free DNA. The recent use of unique molecular identifiers (UMI) in targeted sequencing protocols has offered a trustworthy approach to filter out artefactual variants and accurately call low-frequency variants. However, the integration of UMI analysis in the variant calling process led to developing tools that are significantly slower and more memory consuming than raw-reads-based variant callers.