Metabolite-Investigator: an integrated user-friendly workflow for metabolomics multi-study analysis

Abstract

Motivation: Many diseases have a metabolic background, which is increasingly investigated due to improved measurement techniques allowing high-throughput assessment of metabolic features in several body fluids. Integrating data from multiple cohorts is of high importance to obtain robust and reproducible results. However, considerable variability across studies due to differences in sampling, measurement techniques and study populations needs to be accounted for. Results: We present Metabolite-Investigator, a scalable analysis workflow for quantitative metabolomics data from multiple studies. Our tool supports all aspects of data pre-processing including data integration, cleaning, transformation, batch analysis as well as multiple analysis methods including uni- and multivariable factor-metabolite associations, network analysis and factor prioritization in one or more cohorts. Moreover, it allows identifying critical interactions between cohorts and factors affecting metabolite levels and inferring a common covariate model, all via a graphical user interface.