1. Sort genome heatmap tracks by metadata annotation
  2. Re-arrange order of appearance of metadata terms in color map
  3. Add/remove terms for the metadata color map
  4. Custom metadata

The metadata color map

The metadata color map visualizes track attributes in form of colors. It aligns with genome heatmap and has same height. Each row in the metadata color map corresponds to a track. Each column is one metadata vocabulary term. A cell is identified by the row (track) and column (term) it belongs to, and uses color to indicate the track's attribute with respect to the term. Within each column, cells with same values share same color. When you mouse over, a tooltip pops out holding the name of attribute. Clicking on the color block a baloon will appear showing description of that attribute.

The gray area in metadata color map indicates "not applicable" when the track is not annotated by the term. Such is the case for cells at intersection of MRE-Seq tracks (of measuring unmethylated CpGs) and "Histone Mark" terms. Cursor actions (hovering, clicking, dragging) will have no effect over the gray area.

Right click on the color block will select all the tracks spanned by that color block, and will yield a menu showing options that can be applied to all those tracks:

Finally, you can drag on the color block to move the group of tracks vertically.

Sort genome heatmap tracks by metadata annotation

For this purpose click on vertically printed term names at top of metadata color map. This will re-arrange genome heatmap tracks by placing those with same attribute together. As an example, the metadata color map looks like this:

After clicking "Adult Cells/Tissues" the color map will be like:

Re-arrange order of appearance of metadata terms in color map

Press and drag vertical term names to re-arrange.

Add/remove terms for the metadata color map

Refer to metadata vocabulary section where you can browse the metadata vocabulary and determine which terms to be shown in the metadata color map.

Custom metadata

Creating and using custom metadata is possible when using custom bigWig tracks function. Please refer to this chapter for information.


Last modifed: 12/23/2011