NanoR: a user-friendly R package to analyze and compare nanopore sequencing data

Abstract

MinION and GridION X5 from Oxford Nanopore Technologies are devices for real-time DNA and RNA sequencing. On the one hand, MinION is the only real-time, low cost and portable sequencing device and, thanks to its unique properties, is becoming more and more popular among biologists; on the other, GridION X5, mainly for its costs, is less widespread but highly suitable for researchers with large sequencing projects. Despite the fact that Oxford Nanopore Technologies devices have been increasingly used in the last few years, there is a lack of high-performing and user-friendly tools to handle the data outputted by both MinION and GridION X5 platforms. Here we present NanoR, a cross-platform R package designed with the purpose to simplify and improve nanopore data visualization. Indeed, NanoR is built on few functions but overcomes the capabilities of existing tools to extract meaningful informations from MinION sequencing data; in addition, as exclusive features, NanoR can deal with GridION X5 sequencing outputs and allows comparison of both MinION and GridION X5 sequencing data in one command. NanoR is released as free package for R at https://github.com/davidebolo1993/NanoR.