Development of interactive biological web applications with R/Shiny.

Area of Science:

• Bioinformatics
• Computational Biology
• Data Science

Background:

• Interactive web applications are crucial for biological data management and analysis.
• R is a popular programming language for biological data analysis.
• Developing web applications was challenging for R users before the Shiny package.

Purpose of the Study:

• To review the development of biological web applications using R/Shiny.
• To highlight key R/Shiny applications and resources for the bioinformatics community.

Main Methods:

• Review of existing R/Shiny biological web applications.
• Summary of fundamental steps for building R/Shiny applications.
• Identification of common R packages for R/Shiny development.

Main Results:

• The Shiny package simplifies the creation of interactive web applications from R code.
• Over 470 biological web applications have been developed using R/Shiny.
• The review covers application examples, development processes, interface/server packages, cloud deployment, and online resources.

Conclusions:

• R/Shiny significantly lowers the barrier to entry for developing biological web applications.
• The R/Shiny ecosystem offers comprehensive resources for application development and deployment.
• This review serves as a guide for utilizing R/Shiny in bioinformatics.