{"id":431,"date":"2025-07-10T20:05:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-10T20:05:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/open.qtlmax.com\/guide\/?p=431"},"modified":"2026-02-09T20:00:33","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T02:00:33","slug":"drawing-a-manhattan-plot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/open.qtlmax.com\/guide\/index.php\/2025\/07\/10\/drawing-a-manhattan-plot\/","title":{"rendered":"How to draw a Manhattan plot"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>When you perform GWAS calculations in QTLmax, the following result files are generated:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol start=\"1\" class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>genotype.ped<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>genotype.map<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>pvalues<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>pvalues_map.csv<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p>To create a Manhattan plot using QTLmax, you&#8217;ll need two of these four files: <strong>genotype.map<\/strong> (file #2) and <strong>pvalues<\/strong> (file #3). This post will explain how to draw a Manhattan plot using QTLmax Workbench.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Figure 1 shows the Manhattan plot drawing tab selected in QTLmax Workbench. This tab has many settings options. If you don&#8217;t want to select each setting manually, just click the <strong>[Load demo]<\/strong> button. You&#8217;ll see that most of the settings are configured automatically. After replacing the demo data with your own, you&#8217;re free to change the settings to your desired values. <strong>Selecting colors for each chromosome is mandatory<\/strong>. Once all settings are finalized, click the <strong>[Visualize]<\/strong> button, and you&#8217;ll see the Manhattan plot generated (Figure 2).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/open.qtlmax.com\/guide\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/QTLmax-Workbench_008-1-1024x590.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-580\" srcset=\"https:\/\/open.qtlmax.com\/guide\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/QTLmax-Workbench_008-1-1024x590.png 1024w, https:\/\/open.qtlmax.com\/guide\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/QTLmax-Workbench_008-1-300x173.png 300w, https:\/\/open.qtlmax.com\/guide\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/QTLmax-Workbench_008-1-768x443.png 768w, https:\/\/open.qtlmax.com\/guide\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/QTLmax-Workbench_008-1-1536x885.png 1536w, https:\/\/open.qtlmax.com\/guide\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/QTLmax-Workbench_008-1.png 1798w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>(Figure 1)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/open.qtlmax.com\/guide\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/QTLmax-Workbench_009-1024x590.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-581\" srcset=\"https:\/\/open.qtlmax.com\/guide\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/QTLmax-Workbench_009-1024x590.png 1024w, https:\/\/open.qtlmax.com\/guide\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/QTLmax-Workbench_009-300x173.png 300w, https:\/\/open.qtlmax.com\/guide\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/QTLmax-Workbench_009-768x443.png 768w, https:\/\/open.qtlmax.com\/guide\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/QTLmax-Workbench_009-1536x885.png 1536w, https:\/\/open.qtlmax.com\/guide\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/QTLmax-Workbench_009.png 1798w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>(Figure 2)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If the crop species used in your GWAS analysis is a hexaploid and you want to display the Manhattan plot with three colors, <strong>check the &#8220;Extra chr.&#8221; box<\/strong>. This will activate the &#8220;<strong>3n<\/strong>&#8221; button. Clicking this button will bring up a palette window where you can select your desired color to specify the third color. Additionally, you can change the labels for each chromosome by editing the values in the <strong>Chromosome labels<\/strong> table (Figure 3).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/open.qtlmax.com\/guide\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/QTLmax-Workbench_010-1-1024x590.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-583\" srcset=\"https:\/\/open.qtlmax.com\/guide\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/QTLmax-Workbench_010-1-1024x590.png 1024w, https:\/\/open.qtlmax.com\/guide\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/QTLmax-Workbench_010-1-300x173.png 300w, https:\/\/open.qtlmax.com\/guide\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/QTLmax-Workbench_010-1-768x443.png 768w, https:\/\/open.qtlmax.com\/guide\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/QTLmax-Workbench_010-1-1536x885.png 1536w, https:\/\/open.qtlmax.com\/guide\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/QTLmax-Workbench_010-1.png 1798w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>(Figure 3)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you want to draw a Manhattan plot for <strong>only a specific genomic region<\/strong>, you can do so by selecting the desired start and end points. First, choose the SNP you want to use as the starting point in the <strong>SNP list<\/strong> box and click the <strong>[From]<\/strong> button. Then, select the SNP for the end point and click the <strong>[To]<\/strong> button.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After this, click the <strong>[Confirm]<\/strong> button, and you&#8217;ll see the <strong>&#8220;Chromosome labels&#8221;<\/strong> update. Finally, click the <strong>[Visualize]<\/strong> button to generate the Manhattan plot exclusively for the genome window you&#8217;ve defined (Figure 4).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/open.qtlmax.com\/guide\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/QTLmax-Workbench_012-1024x590.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-587\" srcset=\"https:\/\/open.qtlmax.com\/guide\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/QTLmax-Workbench_012-1024x590.png 1024w, https:\/\/open.qtlmax.com\/guide\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/QTLmax-Workbench_012-300x173.png 300w, https:\/\/open.qtlmax.com\/guide\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/QTLmax-Workbench_012-768x443.png 768w, https:\/\/open.qtlmax.com\/guide\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/QTLmax-Workbench_012-1536x885.png 1536w, https:\/\/open.qtlmax.com\/guide\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/QTLmax-Workbench_012.png 1798w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>(Figure 4)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When you perform GWAS calculations in QTLmax, the following result files are generated: To create a Manhattan plot using QTLmax, you&#8217;ll need two of these four files: genotype.map (file #2) and pvalues (file #3). This post will explain how to draw a Manhattan plot using QTLmax Workbench. Figure 1 shows the Manhattan plot drawing tab [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-guide"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/open.qtlmax.com\/guide\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/open.qtlmax.com\/guide\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/open.qtlmax.com\/guide\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/open.qtlmax.com\/guide\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/open.qtlmax.com\/guide\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=431"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/open.qtlmax.com\/guide\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1044,"href":"https:\/\/open.qtlmax.com\/guide\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431\/revisions\/1044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/open.qtlmax.com\/guide\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/open.qtlmax.com\/guide\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/open.qtlmax.com\/guide\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}