This release introduces the `--bridge-gaps` parameter to `methscan scan` and `methscan diff`.
By default, `methscan scan` runs a sliding window along the genome. Overlapping windows exceeding a certain variance threshold are then merged in a peak-calling procedure, yielding VMRs of variable size depending on the width of the variance peak. If there are long stretches of variably methylated DNA, this peak-calling can sometimes produce "fragmented VMRs", i.e. many nearby VMRs that are separated by very small gaps:
![Screenshot from 2024-07-31 17-08-58](https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/9c9cc9fb-1963-4aea-9cda-7ce41a2f09a8)
In this illustration, many VMRs (thick vertical purple lines) were detected in the gene body of the depicted gene. Since some of these VMRs are only separated by a tiny gap, it may be more appropriate to merge them into one continuous, large VMR.
This VMR merging is now possible by setting `--bridge-gaps` to e.g. 1000, which would mean that VMRs with a gap of 1000 bp or less will be merged into one VMR, as illustrated here on some mock data:
![image](https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/ba740227-44d0-4192-95c3-ff24d10acec2)
(red thick line: regular VMR peak calling; blue thick line: VMR peak calling with `--bridge-gaps 400`. The variance threshold is at 0.55; the y position of the thick lines has no meaning).
The same functionality was also added to the DMR detection approach implemented in `methscan diff`.
This release also fixes a minor bug in the calculation of the adjusted p-values associated with DMRs.