Visual exploration of microbiome data

A dramatic increase in large-scale cross-sectional and temporal-level metagenomic experiments has led to an improved understanding of the microbiome and its role in human well-being. Consequently, a plethora of analytical methods has been developed to decipher microbial biomarkers for various diseases, cluster different ecosystems based on microbial content, and infer functional potential of the microbiome as well as analyze its temporal behavior. Development of user-friendly visualization methods and frameworks is necessary to analyze this data and infer taxonomic and functional patterns corresponding to a phenotype. Thus, new methods as well as application of pre-existing ones has gained importance in recent times pertaining to the huge volume of the generated microbiome data. In this review, we present a brief overview of some useful visualization techniques that have significantly enriched microbiome data analytics.