Szot Peter S, Yang Andrian, Wang Xin, Parsania Chirag, Röhm Uwe, Wong Koon Ho, Ho Joshua W K
Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute, Darlinghurst, NSW 2010, Australia.
School of Information Technologies, University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia.
Nucleic Acids Res. 2017 May 19;45(9):e67. doi: 10.1093/nar/gkw1358.
Genome browsers are widely used for individually exploring various types of genomic data. A handful of genome browsers offer limited tools for collaboration among multiple users. Here, we describe PBrowse, an integrated real-time collaborative genome browser that enables multiple users to simultaneously view and access genomic data, thereby harnessing the wisdom of the crowd. PBrowse is based on the Dalliance genome browser and has a re-designed user and data management system with novel collaborative functionalities, including real-time collaborative view, track comment and an integrated group chat feature. Through the Distributed Annotation Server protocol, PBrowse can easily access a wide range of publicly available genomic data, such as the ENCODE data sets. We argue that PBrowse represents a paradigm shift from using a genome browser as a static data visualization tool to a platform that enables real-time human-human interaction and knowledge exchange in a collaborative setting. PBrowse is available at http://pbrowse.victorchang.edu.au, and its source code is available via an open source BSD 3 license at http://github.com/VCCRI/PBrowse.
基因组浏览器被广泛用于单独探索各种类型的基因组数据。少数基因组浏览器为多个用户之间的协作提供了有限的工具。在这里，我们描述了PBrowse，这是一种集成的实时协作基因组浏览器，它使多个用户能够同时查看和访问基因组数据，从而利用群体智慧。PBrowse基于Dalliance基因组浏览器，并具有重新设计的用户和数据管理系统以及新颖的协作功能，包括实时协作视图、轨迹注释和集成的群组聊天功能。通过分布式注释服务器协议，PBrowse可以轻松访问广泛的公开可用基因组数据，如ENCODE数据集。我们认为，PBrowse代表了一种范式转变，即从将基因组浏览器用作静态数据可视化工具转变为一个能够在协作环境中实现实时人际互动和知识交流的平台。PBrowse可在http://pbrowse.victorchang.edu.au上获取，其源代码可通过开源BSD 3许可在http://github.com/VCCRI/PBrowse上获取。
