TBtools: An Integrative Toolkit Developed for Interactive Analyses of Big Biological Data

Mol Plant. 2020 Aug 3;13(8):1194-1202. doi: 10.1016/j.molp.2020.06.009. Epub 2020 Jun 23.

Authors

Chengjie Chen¹, Hao Chen², Yi Zhang¹, Hannah R Thomas³, Margaret H Frank³, Yehua He⁴, Rui Xia⁵

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory for Conservation and Utilization of Subtropical Agro-Bioresources, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, Guangdong 510640, China; Guangdong Laboratory for Lingnan Modern Agriculture, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, Guangdong 510640, China; Key Laboratory of Biology and Germplasm Enhancement of Horticultural Crops in South China, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affair, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, Guangdong 510640, China; College of Horticulture, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, Guangdong 510640, China.
² Oilseed Crops Institute, Hunan Agricultural University, Changsha 410128, China.
³ Plant Biology Section, School of Integrative Plant Science, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA.
⁴ Guangdong Laboratory for Lingnan Modern Agriculture, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, Guangdong 510640, China; Key Laboratory of Biology and Germplasm Enhancement of Horticultural Crops in South China, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affair, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, Guangdong 510640, China; College of Horticulture, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, Guangdong 510640, China.
⁵ State Key Laboratory for Conservation and Utilization of Subtropical Agro-Bioresources, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, Guangdong 510640, China; Guangdong Laboratory for Lingnan Modern Agriculture, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, Guangdong 510640, China; Key Laboratory of Biology and Germplasm Enhancement of Horticultural Crops in South China, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affair, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, Guangdong 510640, China; College of Horticulture, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, Guangdong 510640, China. Electronic address: rxia@scau.edu.cn.

PMID: 32585190
DOI: 10.1016/j.molp.2020.06.009

Abstract

The rapid development of high-throughput sequencing techniques has led biology into the big-data era. Data analyses using various bioinformatics tools rely on programming and command-line environments, which are challenging and time-consuming for most wet-lab biologists. Here, we present TBtools (a Toolkit for Biologists integrating various biological data-handling tools), a stand-alone software with a user-friendly interface. The toolkit incorporates over 130 functions, which are designed to meet the increasing demand for big-data analyses, ranging from bulk sequence processing to interactive data visualization. A wide variety of graphs can be prepared in TBtools using a new plotting engine ("JIGplot") developed to maximize their interactive ability; this engine allows quick point-and-click modification of almost every graphic feature. TBtools is platform-independent software that can be run under all operating systems with Java Runtime Environment 1.6 or newer. It is freely available to non-commercial users at https://github.com/CJ-Chen/TBtools/releases.

Keywords: TBtools; big data; bioinformatics; data visulization; gene family.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

Big Data*
Computational Biology*
Software*