Tools and databases always make mapping our world a little easier, whether its used to train as Google’s next pokemaster or figuring out what to do with your heaps of fancy new reduced representation bisulphite sequencing (RRBS) or whole genome bisulphite sequencing (WGBS) data.
A talented team of epigenome hackers from the University of Otago (New Zealand) have just put out a tool that includes a suite of statistical tools and a unique approach for analyzing DNA methylation data from RRBS and WGBS. The app also links a list of regions to the genome and provides gene features and CpG features.
Here’s more about this cool new tool:
- The team dubbed the software DMAP (Differential methylation analysis package) to help tackles the heaps of data generated from bisufite sequencing.
- DMAP can be used to interpret omic bisulfite sequencing data, whether it be reduced representation or the whole shabang.
- DMAP also incorporates a novel fragment based analysis for RRBS.
- Identity of not only gene and CpG features, but also the distances to the differentially methylated regions is provided in “a format that is easily analyzed with limited bioinformatics knowledge.”
In the spirit of open science, the team has made the tool, source code, and sample data sets freely available for download. This helps make for an easy to learn tool (at least for something written in C) and the sample data sets help show just what this baby can do. So now you can spend your time on life’s more important hobbies, like “catching them all.”
Go get your package in Bioinformatics, April 2014