A multi-omics digital research object for the genetics of sleep regulation

More and more researchers make use of multi-omics approaches to tackle complex cellular and organismal systems. It has become apparent that the potential for re-use and integrate data generated by different labs can enhance knowledge. However, a meaningful and efficient re-use of data generated by others is difficult to achieve without in depth understanding of how these datasets were assembled. We therefore designed and describe in detail a digital research object embedding data, documentation and analytics on mouse sleep regulation. The aim of this study was to bring together electrophysiological recordings, sleep-wake behavior, metabolomics, genetics, and gene regulatory data in a systems genetics model to investigate sleep regulation in the BXD panel of recombinant inbred lines. We here showcase both the advantages and limitations of providing such multi-modal data and analytics. The reproducibility of the results was tested by a bioinformatician not implicated in the original project and the robustness of results was assessed by re-annotating genetic and transcriptome data from the mm9 to the mm10 mouse genome assembly.