Apollo: Democratizing genome annotation

Publishing date: 2019-02-27

Published on: PLOS Computational Biology

summary: Genome annotation is the process of identifying the location and function of a genome’s encoded features. Improving the biological accuracy of annotation is a complex and iterative process requiring researchers to review and incorporate multiple sources of information such as transcriptome alignments, predictive models based on sequence profiles, and comparisons to features found in related organisms. The authors present Apollo, an open source software package that enables researchers to efficiently inspect and refine the precise structure and role of genomic features in a graphical browser-based platform. Some of Apollo’s newer user interface features include support for real-time collaboration, allowing distributed users to simultaneously edit the same encoded features while also instantly seeing the updates made by other researchers on the same region in a manner similar to Google Docs. Its technical architecture enables Apollo to be integrated into multiple existing genomic analysis pipelines and heterogeneous laboratory workflow platforms.

authors: Nathan A. Dunn, Deepak R. Unni, Colin Diesh, Monica Munoz-Torres, Nomi L. Harris, Eric Yao, Helena Rasche, Ian H. Holmes, Christine G. Elsik, Suzanna E. Lewis

link to paper: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1006790

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