BLASTPLOT: a PERL module to plot next generation sequencing NCBI-BLAST results.

Area of Science:

• Genomics
• Bioinformatics

Background:

• Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) generates vast amounts of data, necessitating efficient analysis methods.
• Read-based BLAST analysis is common for metagenomic samples but often lacks sufficient coverage for de novo assembly.
• Visualizing the distribution of aligned reads across reference sequences is crucial for understanding genomic data and experimental design.

Purpose of the Study:

• To address the need for automated visualization of BLAST results for multiple reference sequences.
• To provide a solution for analyzing read distribution in Next Generation Sequencing data.
• To streamline the process of generating coverage plots for primers, probes, and sequencing reads.

Main Methods:

• Development of BLASTPLOT, a PERL module.
• Utilizing BLAST results from short sequences (primers, probes, reads) against reference targets.
• Automating the generation of coverage plots.

Main Results:

• BLASTPLOT enables rapid plotting of BLAST results.
• The module efficiently handles short sequences like primers, probes, and reads.
• It generates visualizations for alignments against reference targets.

Conclusions:

• BLASTPLOT is a user-friendly PERL module for visualizing BLAST results.
• It automates the generation of PNG graphs for all reference sequences within a BLAST result set.
• This tool simplifies the analysis of sequencing data alignment and coverage.