circHiC

circHiC visualizes Hi-C contact frequency data from Hi-C-like experiments as circular representations to represent bacterial circular chromosomes and optionally linear chromosomes for comparative analyses.

Key Features:

• Circular visualization of Hi-C data: Displays Hi-C contact matrices as circular strips that respect chromosome periodicity and provide an alternative to square-matrix layouts.
• Overlay capabilities: Supports overlaying additional genomic data, including various plot types and heat maps, onto circular Hi-C plots.
• Versatility across organisms: Supports visualization for bacterial circular chromosomes and for linear chromosomes relevant to eukaryotic data.
• Efficient implementation: Implemented to be lightweight and fast for exploration of chromosome structuring data.

Scientific Applications:

• Bacterial genomics: Facilitates interpretation of Hi-C data for bacterial chromosome organization, aiding analyses of spatial genome organization, gene regulation, and cellular function.
• Eukaryotic genome studies: Provides novel circular-context visualizations for linear eukaryotic chromosomes to support comparative and evolutionary studies of chromosomal interactions.

Methodology:

Implements circular-strip representations of Hi-C contact matrices with overlay-capable plots and heat maps; implemented in Python 3 and built on Matplotlib.