A Survey of Visualization Approaches for Comparative Genomics

Abstract

Using visual analytics techniques to compare genomic data can not only help understand the multi-omics function and structure behind gene sequences and the attributes, but also explore the influence of conservation and variation on genomic genetic relationship deeply. Therefore, visualization approaches are of great significance for data-intensive comparative genomics knowledge discovery. The related research on visual analysis of comparative genomics in recent years are reviewed. First, the data structure and visual analysis tasks of genomics sequences and the derived information are briefly described. Second, the spatial layout of the genome is classified into three categories: vertical discrete, horizontal continuous and radial nested. The advantages and disadvantages of these various mapping methods are also compared and summarized. Third, two main genome comparative relationships are extracted, i.e., interactive association and family hierarchical relationship, and then the relevant suitable visualization approaches are summarized. Finally, the challenges and opportunities of visualization methods for comparative genomics in data fusion, interaction and general framework are pointed out.