Bioinformatics Advance Access originally published online on February 20, 2009
Bioinformatics 2009 25(7):960-961; doi:10.1093/bioinformatics/btp096
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Seevolution: visualizing chromosome evolution
Institute for Molecular Bioscience, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD 4072, Australia
*To whom correspondence should be addressed.
| Abstract |
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Summary: Genome evolution underpins all of biology, yet its principles can be difficult to communicate to the non-specialist. To facilitate broader understanding of genome evolution, we have designed an interactive 3D environment that enables visualization of diverse genome evolution processes. The system can intuitively and interactively animate mutation histories involving genome rearrangement, point mutation, recombination, insertion and deletion. Multiple organisms related by a phylogeny can be visualized simultaneously. As methods to infer evolutionary histories of genomes become increasingly complex, visualization of the evolutionary process will not only be useful for communication, but will also serve as an exploratory tool for discovering new patterns of genome evolution.
Availability: The software is licensed under the GNU GPL and available for download from http://seevolution.org.
Contact: aarondarling{at}ucdavis.edu
Associate Editor: John Quackenbush
Received on August 5, 2008; revised on January 30, 2009; accepted on February 16, 2009