Plant & Animal Genome VI Conference

W68

GENOME-INDEPENDENT COMPARATIVE MAP DISPLAY ON THE WWW

Genome Database, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, 2024 E. Monument St., Baltimore, MD 21205

Display of mapping data to the scientific community over the World Wide Web (WWW) is a common goal for both plant and animal genomes projects. Ideally, a map display tool should be independent of genomic, database, and platform differences, and serve data from both the output of dynamic queries and static sources. Mapview is a tool written for display of human genome maps stored in the Genome Database (GDB). It achieves both genomic and database independence by acting as an interpreter of a concise layout description language which is generated by a Perl script from the output of database queries. The generic qualities of the description language allow its use in describing most types of linear maps, regardless of species. Mapview's implementation as a Java^tm applet provides platform independence and eliminates the need for the user to install client software. The inclusion of URLs in the input file support active hotlinks from map markers to the web browser. Maps can be zoomed, scrolled and moved relative to each other; markers can be color-coded and/or show alternate labels. Mapview can display an arbitrary number of maps and provides the ability to show comparative mapping data from multiple sources by highlighting alignments between common markers across all maps. A PostScript generation feature supports printing of maps across multiple pages. Mapview source code can be obtained free of charge for reuse with other genomic databases. For more information visit GDB at http://www.gdb.org.