Argo: Genome Browser

The Argo Genome Browser is the Broad Institute's production tool for visualizing and manually annotating whole genomes.

Navigation

Argo is currently unstaffed. The Broad Institute is currently reviewing future directions for visualization.

Argo is a free, open source, and standalone Java 1.5 application. It provides:

Display of sequence and annotation tracks (from SAM/BAM, FASTA, Genbank, GFF, BLAST, BED, Wiggle (WIG), and Genscan files).
Extensive customization options.
Interactive zoom from megabase to nucleotide resolution.
Editing of individual features, supporting manual annotation.

There are two major, coexisting releases of Argo:

Argo2 is the modern version, currently in a stable beta state. It is used in production work, but there are some minor outstanding bugs. The largest gain in this version is the dynamic paging (binning), which allows a seamless navigation of larger areas. The documentation on this page refers to this release.
Argo1 is the legacy release, also stable. Improvements to Argo1 ceased in 2008, as development shifted to Argo2. A number of features in Argo1 were not migrated to Argo2, notably the combo viewer. There were many bugfix releases. Argo1 is still available for download; documentation is available here, and there are more specific links in the Documentation section.

See the Documentation and Source Code for more information.

Some features are only partially completed, and many improvements over Argo1 are not documented. Good luck!

Argo2 development release notes.

Argo2 became an unstaffed project in mid-beta. Updated documentation and the source code are currently unavailable for Argo2.

Three screencasts are available for Argo2, each of which performs a tour of certain features, see below.

In addition, a good amount of the documentation for Argo1 can still be useful when using Argo2:

These short videos help describe certain features and general use of Argo2

Design and implementation: Reinhard Engels and Dennis Jen

Graphical Design of Argo2: Christian Stolte

Current maintenance: Clint Howarth

To cite your use of Argo, please reference http://www.broadinstitute.org/annotation/argo

To ask questions regarding Argo, please email argo-support@broadinstitute.org

Last Updated: February 10, 2011