PanViz: interactive visualization of the structure of functionally annotated pangenomes.

Area of Science:

• Bioinformatics
• Computational Biology
• Genomics

Background:

• Pangenome analysis involves studying the complete set of genes across a collection of genomes.
• Visualizing complex pangenome data and gene group classifications can be challenging.
• Existing tools may require external programs or lack interactive features for gene ontology navigation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce PanViz, a novel, interactive visualization tool for pangenome analysis.
• To enable dynamic visualization of gene group classifications as pangenome subsets are explored.
• To facilitate gene ontology-based navigation and visual querying of gene groups within pangenomes.

Main Methods:

• PanViz is developed using JavaScript for interactive web-based visualizations.
• A companion R package (PanVizGenerator) is provided for data format conversion.
• Visualizations are generated directly and require no external software dependencies.

Main Results:

• PanViz allows interactive visualization of gene group changes based on selected pangenome subsets.
• Users can compare individual genomes to pangenomes with gene ontology-based navigation.
• The tool supports rich and complex visual querying of gene groups.

Conclusions:

• PanViz offers a powerful and accessible solution for rapid pangenome analysis.
• Its interactive and shareable visualizations enhance the exploration of genomic variations.
• The tool streamlines the process of understanding gene content across multiple genomes.