GBrowse

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Learn about
GBrowse at the


SMBE 2009


GMOD Workshop


Learn about using GBrowse for NGS data at the


Next Generation Genome Analysis in Non-Model Organisms


AGA Special Event


There is a session
on GBrowse at
2009 GMOD Summer School - Europe

GBrowse[1] is the most popular viewer in GMOD. For a list of GBrowse and GMOD installations see the GMOD Users page. For a demo of its features, try the WormBase, FlyBase, or Human Genome Segmental Duplication Database web sites.

Description

The Generic Genome Browser (GBrowse) is a combination of database and interactive Web page for manipulating and displaying annotations on genomes. Some of its features:

  • Simultaneous bird's eye and detailed views of the genome.
  • Scroll, zoom, center.
  • Use a variety of premade glyphs (see the BioPerl Glyph documentation for a list) or create your own.
  • Attach arbitrary URLs to any annotation.
  • Order and appearance of tracks are customizable by administrator and end-user.
  • Search by annotation ID, name, or comment.
  • Supports third party annotation using GFF formats.
  • Settings persist across sessions.
  • DNA and GFF dumps.
  • Connectivity to different databases, including BioSQL and Chado.
  • Multi-language support.
  • Third-party feature loading.
  • Customizable plug-in architecture (e.g. run BLAST, dump & import many formats, find oligonucleotides, design primers, create restriction maps, edit features)

GBrowse Versions

GBrowse 1.X (currently 1.69) is the stable series that has been in use since 2002. It is recommended for production use.

GBrowse 2.0 is a rewrite of the original GBrowse to add dynamic updating via AJAX and a smoother user experience. In addition, it provides administrators with the ability to attach a different genome database to each GBrowse track, making it much easier to manage and update tracks. It also provides a distributed backend system of "slave" renderers, allowing each track to be rendered in parallel on a different machine and significantly increasing performance. GBrowse 2.0 is currently in alpha test, but is quite usable. If you wish to try it, consult the GBrowse 2.0 HOWTO.

Installation

GBrowse is Perl-based. It can be installed using the standard Perl module build procedure, or automated using a network-based install script. In order to use the net installer, you will need to have Perl 5.8.6 or higher and the Apache web server installed. See the step-by-step instructions below for detailed instructions:

Documentation

On-line documentation

POD documentation

There are many useful POD documents included with the distribution. These are converted to HTML files when you install the package, and can be found in /gbrowse/docs/pod:

Since these are in Perl POD format these files may contain formatting code when viewed in a Web browser.

Downloads

Source Code Download (tar.gz file)

Download the source from the SourceForge download page.

Net-based Installer Script

The net installer script, located at the GBrowse CVS repository will automatically download and install GBrowse and its Perl libraries for you. See Installation for details on using this script.

CVS

There are many new features in the current development version which have not been released yet. To get the latest version, please use anonymous CVS. The recommended branch to use is stable which is more stable than HEAD. Here is the recipe:

% cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@gmod.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/gmod login
CVS password: <hit return>
% cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@gmod.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/gmod co -r stable Generic-Genome-Browser

Once you have successfully checked out the Generic-Genome-Browser distribution, you can simply perform a cvs update inside the directory to get recent changes.

You can also browse the GBrowse CVS.


About Databases

GBrowse has a flexible adaptor (yes, it is spelled that way and is not "adapter") system for running off various types of databases/sources. A common question is "which adaptor should I be using?" This attempts to answer that question.

Adaptor Other required software Roughly how many users Pros Cons
Bio::DB::SeqFeature::Store (use bp_seqfeature_load.pl) MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite, BerkeleyDB Many and growing fast. Roughly 4X faster than Bio::DB::GFF for the same data; designed to work with GFF3 Developed for use with GFF3; about 2X slower than Bio::DB::GFF to load a database
Bio::DB::GFF (use bp_load_gff.pl, bp_bulk_load_gff.pl, bp_fast_load_gff.pl) A relational database server: MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, or BerkeleyDB Lots! (Especially MySQL) Quite fast; large user base; Have to use this if your data is in the (now deprecated) GFF2 format. Does not work well with GFF3 formatted data
Bio::DB::Sam (available from CPAN) SAMtools Growing (particularly with GBrowse2) Very fast access to NextGen sequencing data Difficult to use with GBrowse 1.70
Bio::DB::BigWig and Bio::DB::BigWigSet (available from CPAN) UCSC Formats Growing (particularly with GBrowse2) Very fast access to data in bigWig format Difficult to use with GBrowse 1.70
Bio::DB::BigBed (available from CPAN) UCSC Formats Growing (particularly with GBrowse2) Very fast access to data in bigBed format Difficult to use with GBrowse 1.70
Bio::DB::Das::Chado (available from CPAN) PostgreSQL and a Chado schema Relatively few due to the specialized nature of Chado Allows 'live' viewing of the features in a Chado database Slow compared to Bio::DB::GFF
Bio::DB::Das::BioSQL (available from CPAN) MySQL and a BioSQL schema Relatively few due to the small number of BioSQL users Allows 'live' viewing of the features in a BioSQL database Slow compared to Bio::DB::GFF
Memory (ie, flat file database using either Bio::DB::GFF or SeqFeature::Store) None For real servers, none Easy for rapid development and testing Very slow for more than a few thousand features
LuceGene Lucene (searches indexed flat files) Relatively few

Email Threads

There have been some useful email threads on adaptor choices and tradeoffs.

Contacts

Please report bugs to the SourceForge Bug Tracker.

Please send questions to the GBrowse mailing list.

References

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