Jasper

Jasper visualizes metagenomic abundance profiles from 16S and whole-genome sequencing by mapping taxa abundances to space-filling Hilbert curve–based Microbiome Maps to reveal taxonomic, spatio-temporal, and functional patterns.

Key Features:

• Space-Filling Hilbert Curve Visualization: Transforms metagenomic abundance profiles into 2D Microbiome Maps using a space-filling Hilbert curve where each map position represents the abundance of a single taxon from a reference collection.
• Flexible Taxa Ordering: Supports multiple taxa-ordering schemes along the Hilbert curve to emphasize taxa hotspots that are common across or unique to specific biological conditions.
• Interactive 2D Maps: Generates interactive 2D Microbiome Maps for detailed exploration and visual analysis of abundance profiles.
• Application Across Study Types: Applied to spatial, temporal, disease-related, and differential metagenomic profiles derived from 16S and whole-genome sequencing datasets.
• Uncovering Latent Relationships: Enables visualization of taxonomic, spatio-temporal, and functional relationships by creating maps involving hundreds of thousands of microbial reference genomes.
• Dynamic Visualization: Converts sequences of Microbiome Maps into animated movies to represent temporal changes in community composition.

Scientific Applications:

• Environmental microbiology: Visualizes community structure and dynamics in environmental samples using 16S and whole-genome sequencing abundance data.
• Human health and disease studies: Characterizes microbiome composition in clinical and health-related contexts to identify disease-associated and differentially abundant taxa.
• Spatio-temporal and longitudinal analyses: Captures spatial and temporal variation in microbial communities and supports longitudinal visualization, including animated sequences.
• Differential and comparative analyses: Highlights taxa hotspots and differences across biological conditions for comparative metagenomic studies.

Methodology:

Transforms metagenomic abundance profiles using a space-filling Hilbert curve, assigns each reference taxon to a fixed position on the curve, supports multiple taxa-ordering schemes, renders 2D Microbiome Maps representing per-taxon abundance, and can export map sequences as animated movies.