Metadata in the Heatmap

Overview

By default, the Collection Location is the only metadata displayed in the heatmap. However, you can customize the metadata fields you would like to see in the heatmap. This guide describes how to add metadata to the heatmap to evaluate patterns among samples.

Adding Metadata

To customize metadata in the heatmap:

1. Click Add Metadata. This will open a metadata dropdown menu.

2. Use the dropdown menu to select and/or unselect metadata. Selected metadata (highlighted with checkmarks) will be at the top of the list. In the example below from the Feline Gingivostomatitis project, we selected the "Diseases and Conditions" metadata field to distinguish samples from healthy and diseased cats.

3. Hover over the metadata field to view the color legend.

4. Click a metadata field of interest to sort samples by metadata and easily see sample groups. In the example below from the Feline Gingivostomatitis project, the heatmap was filtered to display detected viruses across samples. Sorting samples by "Diseases and Conditions" reveals that Feline calicivirus was detected in diseased cats with stomatitis (dark blue and pink samples) but it was not detected in healthy samples (green samples).