pairheatmap: comparing expression profiles of gene groups in heatmaps

This paper presents a new visualization software called pairheatmap, which is able to generate and compare two heatmaps so as to compare expression patterns of gene groups. It adds a conditioning variable such as time to the heatmap, and provides separate clustering for row groups in the first heatmap in order to visualize pattern changes between two heatmaps. pairheatmap is developed in R statistical environment. It provides: (1) the flexible framework for comparing two heatmaps; and (2) high-quality figures based on R package grid. The general architecture can be efficiently incorporated into bioinformatics pipeline. The package and user documentation are free to download at http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/pairheatmap/index.html.