Fast, memory-efficient genomic interval tokenizers for modern machine learning
This work addresses a domain-specific barrier for researchers in genomics and machine learning by providing a tool for scalable and standardized analysis of interval data.
The authors tackled the problem of analyzing heterogeneous genomic interval data with deep learning by introducing gtars-tokenizers, a library that maps intervals to a predefined vocabulary, enabling efficient processing and integration with standard ML frameworks like PyTorch and TensorFlow.
Introduction: Epigenomic datasets from high-throughput sequencing experiments are commonly summarized as genomic intervals. As the volume of this data grows, so does interest in analyzing it through deep learning. However, the heterogeneity of genomic interval data, where each dataset defines its own regions, creates barriers for machine learning methods that require consistent, discrete vocabularies. Methods: We introduce gtars-tokenizers, a high-performance library that maps genomic intervals to a predefined universe or vocabulary of regions, analogous to text tokenization in natural language processing. Built in Rust with bindings for Python, R, CLI, and WebAssembly, gtars-tokenizers implements two overlap methods (BITS and AIList) and integrates seamlessly with modern ML frameworks through Hugging Face-compatible APIs. Results: The gtars-tokenizers package achieves top efficiency for large-scale datasets, while enabling genomic intervals to be processed using standard ML workflows in PyTorch and TensorFlow without ad hoc preprocessing. This token-based approach bridges genomics and machine learning, supporting scalable and standardized analysis of interval data across diverse computational environments. Availability: PyPI and GitHub: https://github.com/databio/gtars.