CoVE: A colony visualization system for animal pedigrees

CoVE is a novel, scalable interactive tool that can be used to visualize and manage large colonies of laboratory animals. Effective management of large colonies of animals with multiple individual attributes and complicated breeding schemes represents a significant data management challenge in the biological sciences. Currently available software either provides databases for record keeping or generates basic pedigrees but not both. Thus, there is a pressing need for an integrated colony management system that provides a repository for the data and addresses the visualization challenge presented by complex genealogical data. We present CoVE, a colony visualization tool that provides an overview of the entire colony, clusters individuals based on Gender, Litter or Genotype, and provides an individual view of any animal for detailed examination. We demonstrate that CoVE provides an efficient way to manage, generate and view complex pedigree of real world genealogical data from animal colonies, annotated with details of individual attributes. It enables interactive tracing of lineages and identification of censored subjects in tumor studies.