Address of the bookmark: http://www.ub.edu/dnasp/

If you are interested in gene prediction, have a look at GenomeThreader.

http://genometools.org/pub/

Address of the bookmark: http://genometools.org/

1. Heatmaps: Exploring Patterns in High-Dimensional Data

Heatmaps are a go-to visualization for representing high-dimensional datasets, such as gene expression or metabolomics data. They use color gradients to display data intensity, making patterns and clusters easily detectable.

• Applications: Gene expression analysis, pathway enrichment, methylation studies.

• Tools: Seaborn (Python), ComplexHeatmap (R), Morpheus (web-based).

Tip: Add dendrograms to visualize clustering of rows and columns for hierarchical relationships.

2. Volcano Plots: Highlighting Differential Features

Volcano plots are indispensable for identifying significantly differentially expressed genes or proteins. They plot the log2 fold change against –log10(p-value), making it easy to spot statistically significant changes.

• Applications: RNA-seq, proteomics, and metabolomics.

• Tools: ggplot2 (R), EnhancedVolcano (R), Plotly (Python).

Tip: Use color to highlight significant features and label key genes or proteins.

3. PCA Plots: Reducing Complexity with Principal Component Analysis

Principal Component Analysis (PCA) plots are used to reduce dimensionality and uncover trends or clusters in data. They provide insights into sample variability and grouping.

• Applications: Transcriptomics, metabolomics, microbiome studies.

• Tools: scikit-learn + Matplotlib (Python), prcomp (R), ClustVis (web-based).

Tip: Annotate clusters with metadata to enhance interpretability.

4. Manhattan Plots: Genome-Wide Association Studies

Manhattan plots visualize p-values across the genome, making it easy to identify significant associations in genome-wide studies. They resemble city skylines, with the highest peaks indicating loci of interest.

• Applications: GWAS, QTL mapping.

• Tools: qqman (R), Matplotlib (Python).

Tip: Use alternating colors for chromosomes and highlight significant SNPs for clarity.

5. Circular Plots (Circos): Visualizing Genomic Relationships

Circular plots are ideal for visualizing relationships across the genome, such as structural variations, gene duplications, or synteny.

• Applications: Comparative genomics, structural variation studies.

• Tools: Circos (standalone), Rcircos (R), pyCircos (Python).

Tip: Keep the plot clean and avoid overcrowding to maintain readability.

6. Sankey Diagrams: Tracking Data Flows

Sankey diagrams visualize flows or relationships between categories, often used to track changes in gene expression or pathway enrichment across conditions.

• Applications: Pathway analysis, gene set enrichment analysis.

• Tools: Plotly (Python), networkD3 (R).

Tip: Use gradients or distinct colors to highlight key transitions.

7. Network Graphs: Mapping Interactions

Network graphs represent relationships between entities, such as protein-protein interactions or gene regulatory networks. Nodes represent entities, and edges represent relationships.

• Applications: Systems biology, interactomics.

• Tools: Cytoscape (standalone), igraph (R), NetworkX (Python).

Tip: Use edge thickness or node size to represent interaction strength or centrality.

8. Violin Plots: Visualizing Data Distribution

Violin plots combine a boxplot with a density plot, showing the distribution and variability of data.

• Applications: Single-cell RNA-seq, quantitative trait analysis.

• Tools: Seaborn (Python), ggplot2 (R).

Tip: Split violins by groups for side-by-side comparisons.

9. Time-Series Plots: Monitoring Changes Over Time

Time-series plots display changes in variables across time points, useful for tracking gene expression dynamics or metabolic fluxes.

• Applications: Time-course experiments, cell cycle studies.

• Tools: Matplotlib (Python), ggplot2 (R).

Tip: Smooth the data to highlight trends while avoiding overfitting.

10. Genome Tracks: Visualizing Genomic Features

Genome tracks display multiple layers of genomic data, such as gene annotations, sequencing coverage, and epigenetic marks.

• Applications: ChIP-seq, ATAC-seq, whole-genome sequencing.

• Tools: IGV (standalone), pyGenomeTracks (Python).

Tip: Stack related tracks for direct comparisons.

11. UpSet Plots: Visualizing Set Intersections

UpSet plots are a powerful alternative to Venn diagrams for visualizing intersections between multiple datasets.

• Applications: Overlap analysis for gene sets, pathways, or variants.

• Tools: UpSetR (R), ComplexUpset (Python).

Tip: Use bar plots to represent the size of each intersection for added clarity.

12. Ridge Plots: Comparing Distributions

Ridge plots visualize the distributions of multiple datasets, stacked for easy comparison.

• Applications: Transcriptomics, single-cell RNA-seq.

• Tools: ggridges (R), Matplotlib (Python).

Tip: Use transparency and consistent scaling for better readability.

13. Chord Diagrams: Visualizing Connections Between Groups

Chord diagrams illustrate relationships between categories, such as shared genes between pathways or overlaps in regulatory elements.

• Applications: Pathway overlap, synteny, co-expression networks.

• Tools: Circlize (R), Holoviews (Python).

Tip: Use distinct colors for each group to emphasize relationships.

14. Treemaps: Hierarchical Data Representation

Treemaps visualize hierarchical data as nested rectangles, with area proportional to data size.

• Applications: Ontology enrichment, pathway analysis.

• Tools: Treemapify (R), Plotly (Python).

Tip: Use colors to represent additional variables, like significance or enrichment scores.

15. T-SNE/UMAP Plots: Dimensionality Reduction for Clustering

T-SNE and UMAP plots are great for visualizing high-dimensional data in two dimensions while preserving local or global structure.

• Applications: Single-cell transcriptomics, clustering analyses.

• Tools: scikit-learn (Python), Seurat (R).

Tip: Combine with metadata annotations for better cluster interpretation.

Bringing It All Together

The choice of visualization can significantly impact the insights gained from bioinformatics data. By selecting plots tailored to your data type and analysis goals, you can effectively communicate your findings and make your research more impactful. Whether you’re a seasoned bioinformatician or a beginner, mastering these visualizations will elevate your analyses and presentations.

http://www.extension.org/pages/67926/upcoming-webinar:-selective-sequencing-through-combinatorial-pooling#.UggsVuHyPqU

Appointment Adv.No.2

Applications in plain paper are invited from Indian citizens for one/two position each of Research Associate, Traineeship and Studentship for BIF facility, Division of Life Sciences, IASST.

Applications with complete Bio-data containing contact address, e-mail and phone number, two recent passport size photographs and attested copies of mark sheets, certificates etc., should be sent to the Registrar, IASST, Paschim Boragaon, Garchuk, Guwahati – 781035, Assam, so as to reach on or before 5/05/2014.

A. Research Associate:

Number of vacancies: 1 (One)

Qualifications:

PhD in Bioinformatics or allied disciplines with knowledge of Bioinformatics. The candidates who have submitted PhD thesis may also apply.

In case, candidates having PhD are not found, candidates having MSc in Bioinformatics or allied disciplines with sound knowledge of Bioinformatics will be preferred.

Remuneration: Candidate having PhD will get a consolidated remuneration of Rs. 22,000/- +HRA per month. MSc having NET/GATE/SLET qualified candidate will get a remuneration of Rs. 16,000/= and HRA and candidate with only MSc will get a remuneration of Rs.14,000/- and HRA.

Tenure:

The post is initially for one year and may be extended depending on the performance till the tenure of the project.

B. Traineeship:

Number of vacancies: 2 (Two)

Qualifications:

Candidate with a postgraduate degree in Bioinformatics/Biotechnology/Life sciences from a recognised University

Remuneration: Rs. 5000/month for 6 months

C. Studentship:

Number of vacancies: 2 (Two)

Qualifications:

Candidate pursuing M.Sc in bioinformatics in a recognised University.

Remuneration: Rs. 5000/month for 6 months

Advertisement:

http://iasst.gov.in/pdf/recruitment/advt%20no_2_24042014.pdf

More at http://faculty.iisertvm.ac.in/~nishantkt/index.html

We developed a novel, self-contained technique named Near HGT, based on the synteny index, to measure the divergence of a gene from its native genomic environment and used it to identify candidate HGT events between closely related strains. The method confirms candidate transferred genes based on the constant relative mutability (CRM). Using CRM, the algorithm assigns a confidence score based on “unusual” sequence divergence. A gene exhibiting exceptional deviations according to both synteny and mutability criteria, is considered a validated HGT product. We first employed the technique to a set of three E. coli strains and detected several highly probable horizontally acquired genes. We then compared the method to existing HGT detection tools using a larger strain data set.

When combined with additional approaches our new algorithm provides richer picture and brings us closer to the goal of detecting all newly acquired genes in a particular strain.

Availability: The method is publicly available athttp://research.haifa.ac.il/~ssagi/software/nearHGT.zip

Address of the bookmark: http://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1004408

An IVOM approach exploits compositional biases using variable order motif distributions and captures more reliably the local composition of a sequence compared to fixed-order methods. Optionally the predictions can be parsed into a 2-state 2nd order Hidden Markov Model (HMM), in a change-point detection framework, to optimize the localization of the boundaries of the predicted regions. The predictions (embl format) can be automatically loaded into the freely available Artemis genome viewer.

Address of the bookmark: http://www.sanger.ac.uk/science/tools/alien-hunter