title: PAPST, a User Friendly and Powerful Java Platform for ChIP-Seq Peak Co-Localization Analysis and Beyond.
abstract: Comparative co-localization analysis of transcription factors (TFs) and epigenetic marks (EMs) in specific biological contexts is one of the most critical areas of ChIP-Seq data analysis beyond peak calling. Yet there is a significant lack of user-friendly and powerful tools geared towards co-localization analysis based exploratory research. Most tools currently used for co-localization analysis are command line only and require extensive installation procedures and Linux expertise. Online tools partially address the usability issues of command line tools, but slow response times and few customization features make them unsuitable for rapid data-driven interactive exploratory research. We have developed PAPST: Peak Assignment and Profile Search Tool, a user-friendly yet powerful platform with a unique design, which integrates both gene-centric and peak-centric co-localization analysis into a single package. Most of PAPST's functions can be completed in less than five seconds, allowing quick cycles of data-driven hypothesis generation and testing. With PAPST, a researcher with or without computational expertise can perform sophisticated co-localization pattern analysis of multiple TFs and EMs, either against all known genes or a set of genomic regions obtained from public repositories or prior analysis. PAPST is a versatile, efficient, and customizable tool for genome-wide data-driven exploratory research. Creatively used, PAPST can be quickly applied to any genomic data analysis that involves a comparison of two or more sets of genomic coordinate intervals, making it a powerful tool for a wide range of exploratory genomic research. We first present PAPST's general purpose features then apply it to several public ChIP-Seq data sets to demonstrate its rapid execution and potential for cutting-edge research with a case study in enhancer analysis. To our knowledge, PAPST is the first software of its kind to provide efficient and sophisticated post peak-calling ChIP-Seq data analysis as an easy-to-use interactive application. PAPST is available at https://github.com/paulbible/papst and is a public domain work.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Skin Biology, Intramural Research Program, National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases, Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America.
authors.forename: Paul W
authors.initials: PW
authors.lastname: Bible
authors.affiliation: Molecular Immunology and Inflammation Branch, Intramural Research Program, National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases, Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America.
authors.forename: Yuka
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Kanno
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Ophthalmology, Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China.
authors.forename: Lai
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Wei
authors.affiliation: Biodata Mining and Discovery Section, Office of Science and Technology, Intramural Research Program, National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases, Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America.
authors.forename: Stephen R
authors.initials: SR
authors.lastname: Brooks
authors.affiliation: Molecular Immunology and Inflammation Branch, Intramural Research Program, National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases, Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America.
authors.forename: John J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: O'Shea
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Skin Biology, Intramural Research Program, National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases, Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America.
authors.forename: Maria I
authors.initials: MI
authors.lastname: Morasso
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Bioinformatics, Center for Advanced Computer Studies, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Lafayette, Louisiana, United States of America.
authors.forename: Rasiah
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Loganantharaj
authors.affiliation: Biodata Mining and Discovery Section, Office of Science and Technology, Intramural Research Program, National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases, Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America.
authors.forename: Hong-Wei
authors.initials: HW
authors.lastname: Sun
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001665:Binding Sites; D047369:Chromatin Immunoprecipitation; D004742:Enhancer Elements, Genetic; D051379:Mice; D058977:Molecular Sequence Annotation; D000066450:Mouse Embryonic Stem Cells / Q000502:physiology; D011381:Programming Languages; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D012984:Software; D014157:Transcription Factors / Q000502:physiology
chemical_list: D014157:Transcription Factors