BARLEX – the Barley Draft Genome Explorer

Genome browsers visualize the end product of genome assembly, which is a highly contiguous sequence. However, how to visualize the intermediate products of genome sequencing? Next-generation sequencing has enabled genome sequencing in species with huge genomes, but most often the shotgun assemblies obtained from short-read sequence data do not meet the quality standards required for finished reference sequences. In particular, many plant genomes do not yet have finished reference sequences, but are instead represented by a developing genomic infrastructure built around incomplete draft assemblies and physical or genetic maps.