The goals of the WashU 4DN Network Data Coordination and Integration Center (4DN-DCIC) component to the 4DN Network Consortium are to collect, store, curate, and display all data, metadata, and analysis tools generated by the 4DN Network. The DCIC will also assist in the development and dissemination of metadata and standards to be adopted by the community at large, approaches for integrative analysis of a wide-range of data types, and visualization and analysis tools to facilitate access and understanding of complex datasets to non-expert users. Ultimately, the 4D Nucleome Network will produce tools, analysis, models, and data that form the reference maps of the 4D architecture of the nucleus for a variety of eukaryote cells and tissues, and we will develop the DCIC into a substantial service organization allowing scientific research to take full advantage of the 4DN reference maps. To support the 4DN Network, we will establish databases with an application framework to facilitate complex data loading including detailed experimental descriptions and metadata; we will define and establish pipelines that connect all Consortium members to the data, and create avenues of access that distribute the data to the greater biological research community; we will establish metadata requirements, controlled vocabularies, standardized data formats, and quality control metrics for all 4DN data; we will bring together laboratories that generate complex data types via experimental assays with laboratories that integrate these data using computational tools to define the spatial and temporal gene expression programs in the context of three- dimensional nucleus structures. Through the creation of structures data flow pipelines for the verification and validation of all data, and providing processes for the documentation of metadata, the DCIC will enhance the 4DN data production. The DCIC will also coordinate integrative data analysis by creating and adapting analysis pipelines, and by developing advanced Genome Browser functions for the visual integration of 4DN data. In addition, we will work with 4DN-OH to create 4DN Web Portal that will be the primary entry point to the wealth of experimental data as well as computational analyses. The Portal will integrate these data resources and make them available via enhanced search and browsing capabilities. Finally, the DCIC will provide documentation, training, and outreach via many media including written documentation, video tutorials, online books, webinars, and meeting workshops and presentations.
of this work for public health is that the comprehensive determination of how genomic information specifies proper execution of spatial and temporal gene expression programs is essential for understanding how cells divide or respond to their environment, for identifying the regulatory mechanisms that control development and are dysregulated in disease, and for studying phenotypic variations among human populations.
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