Interactive Clustered Heat Map Builder: An easy web-based tool for creating sophisticated clustered heat maps.

Area of Science:

• Genomics
• Bioinformatics
• Molecular Biology

Background:

• Clustered heat maps are essential for visualizing and interpreting genome-scale molecular profiling data.
• Creating these heat maps typically requires specialized programming skills (e.g., R) and bioinformatics expertise.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a user-friendly, web-based tool for generating high-caliber, publication-quality clustered heat maps.
• To empower researchers without bioinformatics experience to perform complex data visualization.

Main Methods:

• Development of an Interactive Heat Map Builder, a web-based platform.
• Implementation of iterative data preparation and map generation stages.
• Integration of hierarchical clustering and data transformation functionalities.

Main Results:

• The tool enables users with no prior bioinformatics experience to construct sophisticated heat maps.
• It facilitates an iterative process, allowing users to refine options and approaches during map creation.
• Generated heat maps can be interactive, offering dynamic exploration of results.

Conclusions:

• The Interactive Heat Map Builder democratizes the creation of complex biological data visualizations.
• It significantly lowers the barrier to entry for generating publication-quality heat maps.
• The tool supports dynamic, interactive exploration of molecular profiling data, enhancing biological interpretation.