Perspectives of using Cloud computing in integrative analysis of multi-omics data

Abstract

Integrative analysis of multi-omics data is usually computationally demanding. It frequently requires building complex, multi-step analysis pipelines, applying dedicated techniques for data processing and combining several data sources. These efforts lead to a better understanding of life processes, current health state or the effects of therapeutic activities. However, many omics data analysis solutions focus only on a selected problem, disease, types of data or organisms. Moreover, they are implemented for general-purpose scientific computational platforms that most often do not easily scale the calculations natively. These features are not conducive to advances in understanding genotype-phenotypic relationships. Fortunately, with new technological paradigms, including Cloud computing, virtualization and containerization, these functionalities could be orchestrated for easy scaling and building independent analysis pipelines for omics data. Therefore, solutions can be re-used for purposes that they were not primarily designed. This paper shows perspectives of using Cloud computing advances and containerization approach for such a purpose. We first review how the Cloud computing model is utilized in multi-omics data analysis and show weak points of the adopted solutions. Then, we introduce containerization concepts, which allow both scaling and linking of functional services designed for various purposes. Finally, on the Bioconductor software package example, we disclose a verified concept model of a universal solution that exhibits the potentials for performing integrative analysis of multiple omics data sources.

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