---
name: "hhsearch"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "hhsuite"
version: "3.3.0+ds-8+b3"
release: "Debian 13 (Trixie)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/hhsearch"
---

# hhsearch(1)

search a database of HMMs with a query alignment or query HMM

## NAME

hhsearch - search a database of HMMs with a query alignment or query HMM

## SYNOPSIS

**hhsearch** *-i query -d database* \[*options*\]

## DESCRIPTION

HHsearch 3.3.0 Search a database of HMMs with a query alignment or query HMM (c) The HH-suite development team Steinegger M, Meier M, Mirdita M, V??hringer H, Haunsberger S J, and S??ding J (2019) HH-suite3 for fast remote homology detection and deep protein annotation. BMC Bioinformatics, doi:10.1186/s12859-019-3019-7

- **-i** \<file\>

  input/query multiple sequence alignment (a2m, a3m, FASTA) or HMM

\<file\> may be 'stdin' or 'stdout' throughout. Options:

- **-d** \<name\>

  database name (e.g. uniprot20\_29Feb2012) Multiple databases may be specified with '-d \<db1\> **-d** \<db2\> ...'

- **-e**

  \[0,1\]   E-value cutoff for inclusion in result alignment (def=0.001)

### Input alignment format:

- **-M** a2m

  use A2M/A3M (default): upper case = Match; lower case = Insert;

-

  '-' = Delete; '.' = gaps aligned to inserts (may be omitted)

- **-M** first

  use FASTA: columns with residue in 1st sequence are match states

- **-M** \[0,100\]

  use FASTA: columns with fewer than X% gaps are match states

- **-tags**/-notags

  do NOT / do neutralize His-, C-myc-, FLAG-tags, and trypsin recognition sequence to background distribution (def=-notags)

### Output options:

- **-o** \<file\>

  write results in standard format to file (default=\<infile.hhr\>)

- **-oa3m** \<file\>

  write result MSA with significant matches in a3m format

**-blasttab** \<name\> write result in tabular BLAST format (compatible to **-m** 8 or **-outfmt** 6 output)

- 1

  2      3           4      5         6        7      8    9      10   11   12

-

  query target #match/tLen alnLen #mismatch #gapOpen qstart qend tstart tend eval score

- **-opsi** \<file\>

  write result MSA of significant matches in PSI-BLAST format

- **-ohhm** \<file\>

  write HHM file for result MSA of significant matches

- **-add\_cons**

  generate consensus sequence as master sequence of query MSA (default=don't)

- **-hide\_cons**

  don't show consensus sequence in alignments (default=show)

- **-hide\_pred**

  don't show predicted 2ndary structure in alignments (default=show)

- **-hide\_dssp**

  don't show DSSP 2ndary structure in alignments (default=show)

- **-show\_ssconf**

  show confidences for predicted 2ndary structure in alignments

- **-Ofas** \<file\>

  write pairwise alignments in FASTA xor A2M (**-Oa2m**) xor A3M (**-Oa3m**) format

- **-seq** \<int\>

  max. number of query/template sequences displayed (default=1)

- **-aliw** \<int\>

  number of columns per line in alignment list (default=80)

- **-p** \[0,100\]

  minimum probability in summary and alignment list (default=20)

- **-E** \[0,inf\[

  maximum E-value in summary and alignment list (default=1E+06)

- **-Z** \<int\>

  maximum number of lines in summary hit list (default=500)

- **-z** \<int\>

  minimum number of lines in summary hit list (default=10)

- **-B** \<int\>

  maximum number of alignments in alignment list (default=500)

- **-b** \<int\>

  minimum number of alignments in alignment list (default=10)

Filter options applied to query MSA, database MSAs, and result MSA

- **-all**

  show all sequences in result MSA; do not filter result MSA

- **-id**

  \[0,100\]  maximum pairwise sequence identity (def=90)

- **-diff** \[0,inf\[

  filter MSAs by selecting most diverse set of sequences, keeping at least this many seqs in each MSA block of length 50 Zero and non-numerical values turn off the filtering. (def=100)

- **-cov**

  \[0,100\]  minimum coverage with master sequence (%) (def=0)

- **-qid**

  \[0,100\]  minimum sequence identity with master sequence (%) (def=0)

- **-qsc**

  \[0,100\]  minimum score per column with master sequence (default=-20.0)

- **-neff** \[1,inf\]

  target diversity of multiple sequence alignment (default=off)

- **-mark**

  do not filter out sequences marked by "\>@"in their name line

### HMM-HMM alignment options:

- **-norealign**

  do NOT realign displayed hits with MAC algorithm (def=realign)

- **-ovlp** \<int\>

  banded alignment: forbid \<ovlp\> largest diagonals \|i-j\| of DP matrix (def=0)

- **-mact** \[0,1\[

  posterior prob threshold for MAC realignment controlling greediness at alignment ends: 0:global \>0.1:local (default=0.35)

- **-glob**/-loc

  use global/local alignment mode for searching/ranking (def=local)

- **-realign**

  realign displayed hits with max. accuracy (MAC) algorithm

- **-excl** \<range\>

  exclude query positions from the alignment, e.g. '1-33,97-168'

- **-realign\_max** \<int\>

  realign max. \<int\> hits (default=500)

- **-alt** \<int\>

  show up to this many alternative alignments with raw score \> smin(def=4)

- **-smin** \<float\>

  minimum raw score for alternative alignments (def=20.0)

- **-shift** \[-1,1\]

  profile-profile score offset (def=-0.03)

- **-corr** \[0,1\]

  weight of term for pair correlations (def=0.10)

- **-sc**

  \<int\>         amino acid score         (tja: template HMM at column j) (def=1)

- 0

  \= log2 Sum(tja\*qia/pa)   (pa: aa background frequencies)

- 1

  \= log2 Sum(tja\*qia/pqa)  (pqa = 1/2\*(pa+ta) )

- 2

  \= log2 Sum(tja\*qia/ta)   (ta: av. aa freqs in template)

- 3

  \= log2 Sum(tja\*qia/qa)   (qa: av. aa freqs in query)

- 5

  local amino acid composition correction

- **-ssm** {0,..,4}

  0:   no ss scoring

- 1,2: ss scoring after or during alignment

  \[default=2\]

-

  3,4: ss scoring after or during alignment, predicted vs. predicted

- **-ssw** \[0,1\]

  weight of ss score  (def=0.11)

- **-ssa** \[0,1\]

  SS substitution matrix = (1-ssa)\*I + ssa\*full-SS-substition-matrix \[def=1.00)

- **-wg**

  use global sequence weighting for realignment!

### Gap cost options:

- **-gapb** \[0,inf\[

  Transition pseudocount admixture (def=1.00)

- **-gapd** \[0,inf\[

  Transition pseudocount admixture for open gap (default=0.15)

- **-gape** \[0,1.5\]

  Transition pseudocount admixture for extend gap (def=1.00)

- **-gapf** \]0,inf\]

  factor to increase/reduce gap open penalty for deletes (def=0.60)

- **-gapg** \]0,inf\]

  factor to increase/reduce gap open penalty for inserts (def=0.60)

- **-gaph** \]0,inf\]

  factor to increase/reduce gap extend penalty for deletes(def=0.60)

- **-gapi** \]0,inf\]

  factor to increase/reduce gap extend penalty for inserts(def=0.60)

- **-egq**

  \[0,inf\[  penalty (bits) for end gaps aligned to query residues (def=0.00)

- **-egt**

  \[0,inf\[  penalty (bits) for end gaps aligned to template residues (def=0.00)

### Pseudocount (pc) options:

-

  Context specific hhm pseudocounts:

- **-pc\_hhm\_contxt\_mode** {0,..,3}

  position dependence of pc admixture 'tau' (pc mode, default=2)

- 0: no pseudo counts:

  tau = 0

- 1: constant

  tau = a

-

  2: diversity-dependent: tau = a/(1+((Neff\[i\]-1)/b)^c) 3: CSBlast admixture:   tau = a(1+b)/(Neff\[i\]+b) (Neff\[i\]: number of effective seqs in local MSA around column i)

- **-pc\_hhm\_contxt\_a**

  \[0,1\]        overall pseudocount admixture (def=0.9)

- **-pc\_hhm\_contxt\_b**

  \[1,inf\[      Neff threshold value for mode 2 (def=4.0)

- **-pc\_hhm\_contxt\_c**

  \[0,3\]        extinction exponent c for mode 2 (def=1.0)

-

  Context independent hhm pseudocounts (used for templates; used for query if contxt file is not available):

- **-pc\_hhm\_nocontxt\_mode** {0,..,3}

  position dependence of pc admixture 'tau' (pc mode, default=2)

- 0: no pseudo counts:

  tau = 0

- 1: constant

  tau = a

-

  2: diversity-dependent: tau = a/(1+((Neff\[i\]-1)/b)^c) (Neff\[i\]: number of effective seqs in local MSA around column i)

- **-pc\_hhm\_nocontxt\_a**

  \[0,1\]        overall pseudocount admixture (def=1.0)

- **-pc\_hhm\_nocontxt\_b**

  \[1,inf\[      Neff threshold value for mode 2 (def=1.5)

- **-pc\_hhm\_nocontxt\_c**

  \[0,3\]        extinction exponent c for mode 2 (def=1.0)

-

  Context-specific pseudo-counts:

- **-nocontxt**

  use substitution-matrix instead of context-specific pseudocounts

**-contxt** \<file\> context file for computing context-specific pseudocounts (default=)

- **-csw**

  \[0,inf\]  weight of central position in cs pseudocount mode (def=1.6)

- **-csb**

  \[0,1\]    weight decay parameter for positions in cs pc mode (def=0.9)

### Other options:

- **-v** \<int\>

  verbose mode: 0:no screen output  1:only warnings  2: verbose (def=2)

- **-cpu** \<int\>

  number of CPUs to use (for shared memory SMPs) (default=2)

**-scores** \<file\> write scores for all pairwise comparisons to file

- **-atab**

  \<file\> write all alignments in tabular layout to file

- **-maxseq** \<int\>

  max number of input rows (def=65535)

- **-maxres** \<int\>

  max number of HMM columns (def=20001)

**-maxmem** \[1,inf\[ limit memory for realignment (in GB) (def=3.0)

Example: hhsearch **-i** a.1.1.1.a3m **-d** scop70\_1.71

Download databases from \<http://wwwuser.gwdg.de/~compbiol/data/hhsuite/databases/hhsuite\_dbs/\>.
