Metaviz: interactive statistical and visual analysis of metagenomic data

Area of Science:

• Microbiology
• Bioinformatics
• Computational Biology

Background:

• Large-scale microbiome studies are common, generating vast amounts of public data.
• Integrating and analyzing these diverse datasets is challenging for researchers.
• Existing tools often lack effective methods for exploring hierarchical microbiome data.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce Metaviz, an interactive tool for exploratory data analysis of microbiome taxonomic profiles.
• To facilitate the organization, exploration, and integration of large microbiome datasets.
• To enhance the accessibility and utility of public microbiome data resources.

Main Methods:

• Metaviz provides interactive visualizations dynamically updated with user navigation.
• It addresses the challenge of browsing hierarchical metagenomic data features.
• The tool supports marker gene and whole metagenome shotgun sequencing data.

Main Results:

• Metaviz powers the UMD Metagenome Browser, offering access to over 7000 microbiome datasets.
• It can be deployed as a web service or used via the metavizr package for interoperability.
• The tool enables dynamic exploration of annotated microbiome taxonomic community profiles.

Conclusions:

• Metaviz significantly increases the value of public microbiome data through interactive analysis.
• It offers researchers powerful tools for exploring complex microbial community structures.
• Metaviz is freely available, promoting open science and collaborative research in microbiome studies.