title: MetaLook: a 3D visualisation software for marine ecological genomics.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Marine ecological genomics can be defined as the application of genomic sciences to understand the structure and function of marine ecosystems. In this field of research, the analysis of genomes and metagenomes of environmental relevance must take into account the corresponding habitat (contextual) data, e.g. water depth, physical and chemical parameters. The creation of specialised software tools and databases is requisite to allow this new kind of integrated analysis.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We implemented the MetaLook software for visualisation and analysis of marine ecological genomic and metagenomic data with respect to habitat parameters. MetaLook offers a three-dimensional user interface to interactively visualise DNA sequences on a world map, based on a centralised georeferenced database. The user can define environmental containers to organise the sequences according to different habitat criteria. To find similar sequences, the containers can be queried with either genes from the georeferenced database or user-imported sequences, using the BLAST algorithm. This allows an interactive assessment of the distribution of gene functions in the environment.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  MetaLook allows scientists to investigate sequence data in their environmental context and to explore correlations between genes and habitat parameters. This software is a step towards the creation of specialised tools to study constrained distributions and habitat specificity of genes correlated with specific processes. MetaLook is available at: http://www.megx.net/metalook.
authors.affiliation: Microbial Genomics Group, Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, D-28359 Bremen, Germany. tlombard@mpi-bremen.de
authors.forename: Thierry
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Lombardot
authors.forename: Renzo
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Kottmann
authors.forename: Gregory
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Giuliani
authors.forename: Andrea
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: de Bono
authors.forename: Nans
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Addor
authors.forename: Frank Oliver
authors.initials: FO
authors.lastname: Glöckner
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002874:Chromosome Mapping / Q000379:methods*; D003196:Computer Graphics; D004463:Ecology / Q000379:methods*; D023281:Genomics / Q000379:methods*; D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional / Q000379:methods*; D008386:Marine Biology / Q000379:methods*; D012984:Software; D014584:User-Computer Interface