RNA-Sequencing is a powerful technique for identification of novel transcripts
and estimation of gene expression. However, the transcriptome is extremely dynamic and biologists often face a dilemma on the number of replicates to use,
or the total number of reads to generate, especially for detecting
marginally differentially expressed transcript isoforms. Numerous studies attempt to answer these questions, but none of the proposed solutions exist
as an accessible user-friendly mobile application.
Towards this purpose, we have developed RNAtor, a mobile application for Android platforms, where recommendations based on simulations and real data studies, are provided for experimental biologists to determine the number of replicates and reads required to generate expected results, and thus help them plan in advance their RNA Sequencing experiments.
RNAtor, is a user-friendly and accessible App-based framework to help experimental scientists confidently design RNA-seq experiments. The recommendations are based on an exhaustive combination of simulations, and validation with real datasets.
The main input of the application is the transcriptome size which can be provided by the user in two ways -
1. By selecting organism from a list of Eukaryotes OR
2. By entering the transcriptome size manually (in mb's)
The app takes 10% of the genome size as the transcriptome size for further calculations if the user selects organism from the list provided.
RNAtor additionally provides lane wise sample loading information for the widely used NGS instruments which can be exported for documentation.