Integrative study of Arabidopsis thaliana metabolomic and transcriptomic data with the interactive MarVis-Graph software

State of the art high-throughput technologies allow comprehensive experimental studies of organism metabolism and induce the need for a convenient presentation of large heterogeneous datasets. Especially, the combined analysis and visualization of data from different high-throughput technologies remains a key challenge in bioinformatics. We present here the MarVis-Graph software for integrative analysis of metabolic and transcriptomic data. All experimental data is investigated in terms of the full metabolic network obtained from a reference database. The reactions of the network are scored based on the associated data, and sub-networks, according to connected high-scoring reactions, are identified. Finally, MarVis-Graph scores the detected sub-networks, evaluates them by means of a random permutation test and presents them as a ranked list. Furthermore, MarVis-Graph features an interactive network visualization that provides researchers with a convenient view on the results. The key advantage of MarVis-Graph is the analysis of reactions detached from their pathways so that it is possible to identify new pathways or to connect known pathways by previously unrelated reactions. The MarVis-Graph software is freely available for academic use and can be downloaded at: http://marvis.gobics.de/marvis-graph.