ExTaxsI: an exploration tool of biodiversity molecular data

Agostinetto, Giulia; Sandionigi, Anna; Chahed, Adam; Brusati, Alberto; Parladori, Elena; Balech, Bachir; Bruno, Antonia; Pescini, Dario; Casiraghi, Maurizio

Background The increasing availability of multi omics data is leading to continually revise estimates of existing biodiversity data. In particular, the molecular data enable to characterize novel species yet unknown and to increase the information linked to those already observed with new genomic data. For this reason, the management and visualization of existing molecular data, and their related metadata, through the implementation of easy to use IT tools have become a key point for the development of future research. The more users are able to access biodiversity related information, the greater the ability of the scientific community to expand the knowledge in this area. Results In our research we have focused on the development of ExTaxsI (Exploring Taxonomies Information), an IT tool able to retrieve biodiversity data stored in NCBI databases and provide a simple and explorable visualization. Through the three case studies presented here, we have shown how an efficient organization of the data already present can lead to obtaining new information that is fundamental as a starting point for new research. Our approach was also able to highlight the limits in the distribution data availability, a key factor to consider in the experimental design phase of broad spectrum studies, such as metagenomics. Conclusions ExTaxI can easily produce explorable visualization of molecular data and its metadata, with the aim to help researchers to improve experimental designs and highlight the main gaps in the coverage of available data.