RNA-Seq-N-Find: A Web-Based RNA-Seq Training Tool
Since the completion of the Human Genome Project and the beginning of the “-omics” era, biological technology and biological computing have seen an acceleration of advancement to help collect and interpret the massive new datasets that are now available. Here we work with one type of “-omics” data, produced by a Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) technology called RNA-Seq. RNA-Seq analyzes a cell’s transcriptome, which is the portion of the genome that is transcribed at a given instant for a particular cell type in an organism. RNA-Seq-N-Find is a combination of a bioinformatics pipeline and accompanying online modules designed to train the researcher to manipulate a raw RNA sequence file and extract genes and gene pathways of interest based on differential expression. The pipeline will be accessible within the Galaxy interface, which was designed to allow users with no computational skills to do bioinformatics analyses. The online modules include tutorials detailing the choices one might face throughout the process of differential expression analysis using RNA-Seq data. Researchers using the Galaxy interface and our modules will be empowered to use the same techniques with data unique to their research.