Comparative analysis of genome browser for visualization of genetic variants.

Abstract

Genetic variations are used to describe the variations present in the DNA sequence of an individual’s genome. Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) is the commonly used genetic variant for comparative genomics. Each SNP represents a difference in a single DNA base namely Adenine (A), Thymine (T), Cytosine (C) or Guanine (G) in DNA. Similarly, there are many other genetic variants namely Simple Sequence Repeat (SSR), Copy Number Variations (CNV), In Dels etc. At present, these genetic variants have been identified using various methods. These identified genetic variants are scattered at different locations in a genome and are also explored in isolation. A number of Genome browsers are used for the visualization of these variants on web. Therefore, it is required to compare the features of these browsers in order to select a best browser in a given situation. This paper describes the comparison of various features of important genome browsers and a web based prototype developed for visualization of SNPs using HTML, CSS, JavaScript, JSP and JBrowse. This tool will help users to access, addition of other genetic variants and its associated information through a single window interface.