Circos: an Information Aesthetic for Comparative Genomics

Overview

Journal Genome Res

Specialty Genetics

Date 2009 Jun 23

PMID 19541911

Citations 5531

Authors

Martin Krzywinski

Jacqueline Schein

Inanc Birol

Joseph Connors

Randy Gascoyne

Doug Horsman

Steven J Jones

Marco A Marra

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

We created a visualization tool called Circos to facilitate the identification and analysis of similarities and differences arising from comparisons of genomes. Our tool is effective in displaying variation in genome structure and, generally, any other kind of positional relationships between genomic intervals. Such data are routinely produced by sequence alignments, hybridization arrays, genome mapping, and genotyping studies. Circos uses a circular ideogram layout to facilitate the display of relationships between pairs of positions by the use of ribbons, which encode the position, size, and orientation of related genomic elements. Circos is capable of displaying data as scatter, line, and histogram plots, heat maps, tiles, connectors, and text. Bitmap or vector images can be created from GFF-style data inputs and hierarchical configuration files, which can be easily generated by automated tools, making Circos suitable for rapid deployment in data analysis and reporting pipelines.

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