Pigz inside python - Reading compressed .gz file much faster

[jsmith7279]

Hello Pythoners-

I am a linux admin. And one of our users were wondering on how to make the below script faster using pigz or any other multi-threading methods. I have no idea regarding python. Can someone please share on how to make the below part a little bit faster? She said it currently takes around 45minutes to parse on compressed .gz file that is 1GB in size.

if infile.endswith(".gz"):
data = gzip.open(infile, 'rb')
else:
data = open(infile, "r")
outfile = infile.split(".txt")[0] +"_step1.gz"
outdata = gzip.open(outfile, "wb")

## take line by line
for line in data:
line1 = line.rstrip()
if line.startswith("@"):
....
....
....
....
....
outdata.close()
data.close()
print ">Output file: "+ outfile # end of run

Thank you. This is not a homework task. This is a biology lab's problem.