1. Motivation
2. About Exvar
3. Supported Species
4. Installation
5. Functions
6. License
7. Contact
8. Citation
9. Contributors

RNA sequencing data manipulation workflows are complex and require various skills and tools. This creates the need for user-friendly and integrated genomic data analysis and visualization tools.

We developed a novel R package using multiple R packages to perform gene expression analysis and genetic variant calling from RNA sequencing data. The package could be used to analyze eight species’ data. Multiple public datasets were analyzed using the developed package to validate the pipeline for all the supported species.

The Exvar R package performs gene expression and genetic variats (SNPs, Indels, and CNVs) data analysis and visualization.

It is developed to facilitate and minimize the skills required for the genetic expression and variants calling. It includes 9 functions, providing an easy biologist-friendly workflow.

It could be used to analyze data from eight species including:

* Homo Sapiens (19, 37, and 38)

* Mus Musculus

* Arabidopsis Thaliana

* Drosophila Melanogaster

* Danio rerio

* Rattus norvegicus

* Caenorhabditis elegans  

* and Saccharomyces Cerevisiae.

The package could be installed as follows:

install.packages("devtools")

library(devtools)

devtools::install_github("omicscodeathon/Exvar/Package")

library(Exvar)

The package consists of 6 data analysis functions (processfastq(); counts(); expression(); callsnp(); callcnv(); and callindel()), 3 data visualization functions (vizexp(), vizsnp(), and vizcnv()), and a requirement() function is also provided to install all the dependencies. The list of functions and their roles are represented in Table 1.

• Linux for the processfastq(), counts(), expression(), callsnp(), callcnv(), and callindel() functions

• The visualization functions vizexp(), vizsnp(), and vizcnv() are platform-independent.

The RAM and CPU requirements differ according to the analyzed data size. For Human whole genome data 16 CPUs and 65 GB RAM are required.

Artistic license 2.0 Any restrictions to use by non-academics: None.

Ben Aribi H., Dixon I., Abassi N., and Awe O. I.(2023). Exvar: An R Package for Gene Expression And Genetic Variation Data Analysis And Visualization. https://github.com/omicscodeathon/Exvar

• Hiba Ben Aribi, Faculty of Sciences of Tunis, University of Tunis El Manar, Tunis, Tunisia.

• Imraan Dixon, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa.

• Najla Abassi, Higher Institute of Biotechnology Sidi Thabet, Manouba University, Tunisia.

• Olaitan I. Awe, African Society for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, Cape Town, South Africa.