TileQC: A system for tile-based quality control of Solexa data

BACKGROUND: Next-generation DNA sequencing technologies such as Illumina's Solexa platform and Roche's 454 approach provide new avenues for investigating genome-scale questions. However, they also present novel analytical challenges that must be met for their effective application to biological questions. RESULTS: Here we report the availability of tileQC, a tile-based quality control system for Solexa data written in the R language. TileQC provides a means of recognizing bias and error in Solexa output by graphically representing data generated by flow cell tiles. The data represented in the images is then made available in the R environment for further analysis and automation of error detection. CONCLUSION: TileQC offers a highly adaptable and powerful tool for the quality control of Solexa-based DNA sequence data.