Plots vs. Figures: Best Practices for Representing and Presenting Complex Biological Data

Matthew Leventhal, Plots vs. Figures: Best Practices for Representing and Presenting Complex Biological Data Analyzing high-throughput sequencing data presents unique plotting challenges. Visualizations of concepts like copy number alterations and genomic rearrangements need to accurately represent the underlying molecular biology while being simple enough to understand to a broad audience. This session reviews how to make and interpret common visualizations in biology such as Circos plots for somatic rearrangements, log-ratio-to-average-count (MA) plots for diagnosing the quality of RNA-seq normalization, and copy number plots for determining haplotype-specific copy number. Best practices for plotting with large numbers of points and features that distinguish a diagnostic plot from a figure panel are outlined. The examples discussed in this session will be useful to anyone who works with genomic data directly or indirectly. Active participation is encouraged.