Galaxy mothur Toolset (GmT): A user-friendly application for 16S rRNA gene sequencing analysis using mothur

Abstract

Background: The determination of microbial communities using the mothur tool suite (https://www.mothur.org) is well established. However, mothur requires bioinformatics-based proficiency in order to perform calculations via the command-line. Galaxy is a project dedicated to providing a user-friendly web interface for such command-line tools (https://galaxyproject.org/). Results: We have integrated the full set of 125+ mothur tools into Galaxy as the Galaxy mothur Toolset (GmT) and provided a set of workflows to perform end-To-end 16S rRNA gene analyses and integrate with third-party visualization and reporting tools. We demonstrate the utility of GmT by analyzing the mothur MiSeq standard operating procedure (SOP) dataset (https://www.mothur.org/wiki/MiSeq_SOP). Conclusions: GmT is available from the Galaxy Tool Shed, and a workflow definition file and full Galaxy training manual for the mothur SOP have been created. A Docker image with a fully configured GmT Galaxy is also available.