DEVEA: an interactive shiny application for Differential Expression analysis, data Visualization and Enrichment Analysis of transcriptomics data

Abstract

We are at a time of considerable growth in transcriptomics studies and subsequent in silico analysis. RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq) is the most widely used approach to analyse the transcriptome and is integrated in many studies. The processing of transcriptomic data typically requires a noteworthy number of steps, statistical knowledge, and coding skills, which are not accessible to all scientists. Despite the development of a plethora of software applications over the past few years to address this concern, there is still room for improvement. Here we present DEVEA, an R shiny application tool developed to perform differential expression analysis, data visualization and enrichment pathway analysis mainly from transcriptomics data, but also from simpler gene lists with or without statistical values. The intuitive and easy-to-manipulate interface facilitates gene expression exploration through numerous interactive figures and tables, and statistical comparisons of expression profile levels between groups. Further meta-analysis such as enrichment analysis is also possible, without the need for prior bioinformatics expertise. DEVEA performs a comprehensive analysis from multiple and flexible data sources representing distinct analytical steps. Consequently, it produces dynamic graphs and tables, to explore the expression levels and statistical results from differential expression analysis. Moreover, it generates a comprehensive pathway analysis to extend biological insights. Finally, a complete and customizable HTML report can be extracted to enable the scientists to explore results beyond the application. DEVEA is freely accessible at https://shiny.imib.es/devea/ and the source code is available on our GitHub repository https://github.com/MiriamRiquelmeP/DEVEA.