GITAR: An Open Source Tool for Analysis and Visualization of Hi-C Data

Interactions between chromatin segments play a large role in functional genomic assays and developments in genomic interaction detection methods have shown interacting topological domains within the genome. Among these methods, Hi-C plays a key role. Here, we present the Genome Interaction Tools and...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Riccardo Calandrelli, Qiuyang Wu, Jihong Guan, Sheng Zhong
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Elsevier 2018-10-01
Series:Genomics, Proteomics & Bioinformatics
Online Access:http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1672022918304339
Description
Summary:Interactions between chromatin segments play a large role in functional genomic assays and developments in genomic interaction detection methods have shown interacting topological domains within the genome. Among these methods, Hi-C plays a key role. Here, we present the Genome Interaction Tools and Resources (GITAR), a software to perform a comprehensive Hi-C data analysis, including data preprocessing, normalization, and visualization, as well as analysis of topologically-associated domains (TADs). GITAR is composed of two main modules: (1) HiCtool, a Python library to process and visualize Hi-C data, including TAD analysis; and (2) processed data library, a large collection of human and mouse datasets processed using HiCtool. HiCtool leads the user step-by-step through a pipeline, which goes from the raw Hi-C data to the computation, visualization, and optimized storage of intra-chromosomal contact matrices and TAD coordinates. A large collection of standardized processed data allows the users to compare different datasets in a consistent way, while saving time to obtain data for visualization or additional analyses. More importantly, GITAR enables users without any programming or bioinformatic expertise to work with Hi-C data. GITAR is publicly available at http://genomegitar.org as an open-source software. Keywords: Chromatin interaction, Pipeline, Hi-C data normalization, Topologically-associated domain, Processed Hi-C data library
ISSN:1672-0229