Introduction to Genome Browsers

Overview

Presenter: Dr Victoria Perreau

This detailed, hands on tutorial on Genome Browsers will provide beginners with an introduction to both the UCSC Genome browser and IGV (Integrated Genome Viewer). Numerous different datatypes will be displayed in the UCSC browser including human RNAseq data from GTEX and mouse single cell RNAseq data from Tabula Muris. Different data types available will be used to illustrate how a wide variety of biological questions can be investigated in genome browsers using public and local data.

Learning objectives

At the end of the workshop, you will be able to:

• find models for genes and transcripts of interest and interpret differences in the models
• find disease associated variants in the human genome
• determine the tissue/cell type expression profiles of a gene of interest and identify transcript variants expressed in different cell types
• load and view local BAM files in genome browsers
• create custom views and share with colleagues using sessions.

Prerequisites and Requirements

The workshop is aimed at bench researchers with no coding/programming skills who wish to learn how to utilise online data and resources to refine their biological research questions and discovery.

This is a hands-on workshop and attendees must bring their own charged laptops to the workshop with the following software preinstalled:

• access to Uniwireless/Eduroam
• web browser (Firefox or Chrome recommended)
• IGV (Integrated Genome Viewer)
• a mouse is also handy for selecting screen elements
• obtain a login to UCSC Genome browser (free) prior to the workshop to save your own sessions.