MolBioLib: a C++11 framework for rapid development and deployment of bioinformatics tasks

Area of Science:

• Bioinformatics and Computational Biology
• Genomics and Molecular Biology

Background:

• Next-generation sequencing (NGS) generates vast amounts of data requiring specialized analysis tools.
• Existing bioinformatics tools may lack the flexibility and portability needed for diverse genomic applications.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a versatile and portable software framework for next-generation sequencing (NGS) data analysis.
• To provide a set of C++11 applications suitable for various bioinformatics tasks and beyond.

Main Methods:

• Development of a compact and portable C++11 software framework named MolBioLib.
• Implementation of a central relational-database-like Table class for handling diverse tabular datasets.
• Creation of specific applications for tasks such as SNP identification, chromosomal rearrangement detection, and mRNA enrichment analysis.

Main Results:

• MolBioLib provides adaptable tools for NGS data analysis, applicable to various other fields.
• The framework supports common file formats and data types used in genomic and general data analysis.
• Applications developed using MolBioLib are concise (often <200 lines of code) and effective for complex biological problems.

Conclusions:

• MolBioLib addresses the need for flexible and efficient NGS analysis tools.
• Its design facilitates a wide range of genomic analyses and general data processing tasks.
• The framework is well-documented and includes an extensive automated test suite for reliability.