What is MuGeN ?

MuGeN, which stands for Multi-Genome Navigator, is a bioinformatics software package providing two tools. The first one, mugenv can be used to interactively navigate through annotated genomes, whereas the second one, mugenb, can be run in batch mode to generate image files of these genomes. It is capable of importing annotation information from various sources such as local files (in GenBank, EMBL, fasta or BSML format) or remote databases (GenBank, EMBL or Micado).

A major feature of MuGeN is it's ability to mix genome annotations with in silico analysis results as shown in Figure 1>. Analysis results may be drawn on top of features or on dedicated areas below feature lines. They are stored in XML-formatted files having a straightforward grammar (or DTD) which makes it easy to write filters that generate result files from analysis packages.

MuGeN is also capable of displaying multiple interleaved genomes (i.e. when viewing two genomes simultaneously, feature lines will alternate between the first and the second genome). By providing the possibility to define an anchor for each displayed genome, they can be aligned on a specific position or gene offering a view of the surrounding context.

Three levels of visual detail are available: a bird's eye view fit for large genome portions (more than 50 to 100 kb per line), a feature view showing specific representations for the lost frequent feature types (CDS, tRNA, promoter, terminator...). Finally, a sequence view adds the sequence of nucleotides and their translations in the six reading frames to the feature display. The threshold at which views switch from one mode to another is user-definable.

Figure 1. Sample MuGeN output

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A 20 kb window of the genomes of Bacillus subtilis and Bacillus halodurans mixed with analysis results showing gene order conservations between the two organisms.

Interactive navigation features

When examinig one or more annotated genomes with mugenvin feature or sequence view modes, access is given to the full list of qualifiers with their values for the feature currently under the mouse pointer. Also, if a feature references an external resources through a db_xref qualifier, mugenv can launch a Web browser with the corresponding information extracted from the database.

Image output features

mugenb supports a wide variety of output image formats, ranging from Postscript for printer quality images, to XFig for further editing. Bitmap images in PNG format are also available and HTML output can be generated to allow inclusion of the PNG images in clickable image maps. In that case, mugenb generates hyperlinks for each visible feature. These links can be customized to be integrated in existing Web sites.