Overview

exPlot is an interactive plotting tool visualize expression profiles as line graphs for selected genes and experiments.

Basic Usage

Type in multiple gene IDs in the input text area separated by comma, space, tab or new line and hit the “Search” button. Alternatively, you can create a gene list, in which case genes from the currently active list will be displayed. The tool plots VST normalized gene expression values across the selected samples or pre-defined sets of samples for the input genes. Different sample sets are available in the ‘SampleList’ in the top-right corner of the page. The plot is interactive and allows the user to select a subset of the displayed genes and to create a new GeneList containing only these genes. Publication-ready figures, in PDF or SVG format, can be exported

The ‘Take a tour’ feature will provide a brief introduction to the basic functionalities available in exPlot.

Data

exPlot uses TPM (Transcripts Per Kilobase Million) values for absolute expression. Absolute expression values were generated by aligning RNA-Seq reads to the reference genome and gene annotation with aligned read numbers then used to calculate TPM values.

Implementation

exPlot was developed using JavaScript, PHP and MySQL. It uses Highchart open source framework to visualize, draw and export charts interactively.