m6aViewer: software for the detection, analysis, and visualization of<i>N</i>⁶-methyladenosine peaks from m⁶A-seq/ME-RIP sequencing data

Abstract

Recent methods for transcriptome-wide <i>N</i>⁶-methyladenosine (m⁶A) profiling have facilitated investigations into the RNA methylome and established m⁶A as a dynamic modification that has critical regulatory roles in gene expression and may play a role in human disease. However, bioinformatics resources available for the analysis of m⁶A sequencing data are still limited. Here, we describe m6aViewer-a cross-platform application for analysis and visualization of m⁶A peaks from sequencing data. m6aViewer implements a novel m⁶A peak-calling algorithm that identifies high-confidence methylated residues with more precision than previously described approaches. The application enables data analysis through a graphical user interface, and thus, in contrast to other currently available tools, does not require the user to be skilled in computer programming. m6aViewer and test data can be downloaded here: http://dna2.leeds.ac.uk/m6a.