Genome-wide search of nucleosome patterns using visual analytics

Abstract

Motivation

The Burrows-Wheeler Transform (BWT) is widely used for the fast alignment of highthroughput sequence data. This method also has potential applications in other areas of bioinformatics, and it can be specially useful for the fast searching of patterns on coverage data from different sources.

Results

We present a nucleosome pattern search method that converts levels of nucleosomal occupancy to a sequence-like format to which BWT searches can be applied. The method is embedded in a nucleosome map browser, "Nucleosee", an interactive visual tool specifically designed to enhance BWT searches, giving them context and making them suitable for visual discourse analysis of the results. The proposed method is fast, flexible and sufficiently generic for the exploration of data in a broad and interactive way.

Availability

The proposed algorithm and visual browser are available for testing at http://cpg3.der.usal.es/nucleosee. The source code and installation packages are also available at https://github.com/rodrigoSantamaria/nucleosee

Supplementary information

Supplementary files are available at Bioinformatics online. A supplementary video tutorial is available at: http://vis.usal.es/rodrigo/nucleosee/nucleosee.mp4

Keywords
Genome-wide search, visual analytics, Burrows-Wheeler Transform, Nucleosomes
Authors

Rodrigo Santamaría, Roberto Therón, Laura Durán, Alicia García,Sara González, Mar Sánchez and Francisco Antequera 

Content
Journal Paper
bty971.pdf1.95 MB