bioRxiv Science⌕ Search
Home/Archive/bioRxiv

bioRxiv · 10.1101/2025.02.12.637912

ClusterApp to visualize, organize, and navigate metabolomics data

Hansel, V.·Karunarathne, P.·Borelli, T. C.·Quinn, R.·da Silva, R. R.
View original source ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

BackgroundClustering analysis is a foundational step in exploratory data analysis workflows, with dimensionality reduction methods commonly used to visualize multidimensional data in lower-dimensional spaces and infer sample clustering. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) is widely applied in metabolomics but is often suboptimal for clustering visualization. Metabolomics data often require specialized manipulations such as blank removal, quality control adjustments, and data transformations that demand efficient visualization tools. However, the lack of user-friendly tools for clustering without computational expertise presents a challenge for metabolomics researchers. ClusterApp addresses this gap as a web application that performs Principal Coordinate Analysis (PCoA), expanding clustering alternatives in metabolomics. Built on a QIIME 2 Docker image, it enables PCoA computation and Emperor plot visualization. The app supports data input from GNPS, GNPS2, or user-provided spreadsheets. Freely available, ClusterApp can be locally installed as a Docker image or integrated into Jupyter notebooks, offering accessibility and flexibility to diverse users. ResultsTo demonstrate the data preprocessing techniques available in ClusterApp, we analyzed two Liquid Chromatography coupled to Tandem Mass Spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) metabolomics datasets: one exploring metabolomic differences in mouse tissue samples and another investigating coral life history stages. Among the dissimilarity measures available, the Bray-Curtis measure effectively highlighted key metabolomic variations and patterns across both datasets. Targeted filtering significantly enhanced data reliability by retaining biologically relevant features, 10,617 in the coral dataset and 7,341 in the mouse dataset while eliminating noise. The combination of Total Ion Current (TIC) normalization and auto-scaling improved clustering resolution, revealing distinct separations in tissue types and life stages. ClusterApps flexible features, such as customizable blank removal and group selection, provided tailored analyses, enhancing visualization and interpretation of metabolomic profiles. ConclusionClusterApp addresses the need for accessible, dynamic tools for exploratory data analysis in metabolomics. By coupling data transformation capabilities with PCoA on multiple dissimilarity matrices, it provides a versatile solution for clustering analysis. Its web interface and Docker-based deployment offer flexibility, accommodating a wide range of use cases through graphical or programmatic interactions. ClusterApp empowers researchers to uncover meaningful patterns and relationships in metabolomics data without requiring cumbersome data manipulation or advanced bioinformatics expertise.

Explore related subjects

bioinformaticsPreprint

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

Hansel, V., Karunarathne, P., Borelli, T. C., Quinn, R., da Silva, R. R.. 2025-02-17. ClusterApp to visualize, organize, and navigate metabolomics data. https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.02.12.637912

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related preprints

bioRxiv2026

spatialMET: an open and scalable framework for spatial metabolomics analysis

Mass spectrometry imaging (MSI) enables spatially resolved metabolomics in intact tissue sections, but analysis remains challenging at scale. Existing MSI workflows often require users to combine multiple software tools, while others rely on proprietary vendor software that limits interoperability and reproducibility. To address these challenges, we developed spatialMET, an open-source framework that provides an end-to-end workflow for MSI analysis. spatialMET provides a unified platform for preprocessing, spatial domain detection, and visualization. Downstream analyses include differential abundance testing, spatial autocorrelation and gradient analysis, dimensionality reduction, and correlation network analysis. Spatial domain detection uses hcdist, a C-based hierarchical clustering implementation that substantially reduces runtime and memory use relative to existing R-based approaches. spatialMET can be run through an interactive R Shiny application or as a standalone command-line workflow for larger datasets or high-performance computing environments. Applied to mouse small cell lung cancer MALDI-MSI data containing 284,673 pixels, spatialMET identified tumor-associated, stromal, and adjacent lung spatial domains that aligned with matched histology. Differential abundance analysis identified 117 m/z features that differed between tumor and stromal regions, while spatial autocorrelation analyses revealed spatially structured abundance patterns. Applying spatialMET to mouse lung adenocarcinoma data from an entire lung lobe containing 338,477 pixels further demonstrated scalability and captured spatial heterogeneity across tumor and surrounding lung tissue. In summary, spatialMET provides a scalable, open-source framework for end-to-end spatial metabolomics analysis, and it is distributed as a Docker container for reproducible deployment. Source code and installation instructions are available at https://github.com/biodatalab/spatialMET.

bioinformatics↗
bioRxiv2026

Probing the transcriptome response to shivering in skeletal muscle using a multilayered bioinformatics approach

Cold acclimation holds therapeutic potential for improving metabolic health. We previously demonstrated that repeated cold-induced shivering enhances insulin sensitivity in humans. However, the molecular pathways that underlie the skeletal muscle shivering response, and how these relate to beneficial physiological effects, remain poorly understood. In this study, we combined complementary bioinformatics approaches to allow in-depth analysis of the transcriptomic response of human skeletal muscle to repeated shivering. We identified a robust transcriptional signature and show a sex-specific component in the shivering skeletal muscle response, which seemed to diminish following cold adaptation. Our findings provide mechanistic insights into cold-induced muscle adaptations, shed light on potential interesting molecular targets for further investigation, and emphasize the importance of including both sexes in future cold acclimation studies.

bioinformatics↗
bioRxiv2026

An Information Geometry approach to model topological trajectories and Gene Expression Radius from UMAP geometry.

Understanding the relationship between gene expression dynamics and cellular identity remains a central challenge in single cell biology. Here, we introduce a novel computational and mathematical framework that integrates information geometry, fuzzy topology, and UMAP analysis to model gene expression landscapes derived from single cell RNA sequencing data. We formalize gene expression data as a fuzzy topological space, where interactions between expression points are governed by probabilistic distributions inspired by manifold learning approaches such as UMAP. Within this framework, we define an information geometric structure through a Fisher metric induced by these distributions, enabling the computation of geodesic trajectories that capture cellular differentiation processes. A key contribution of this work is the derivation of analytical conditions, expressed as expression radius formulas, that characterize local neighborhoods in gene expression space. These conditions allow for the identification of genes associated with stem cell states and predictions in transitional cell types in future work. Application of the proposed framework to single cell datasets reveals biologically meaningful gene sets enriched in key regulatory pathways and transcription factors, demonstrating the capacity of our approach to uncover latent structure in complex gene expression data. Our results suggest that integrating differential geometry with statistical learning theory offers a powerful paradigm for modeling genotype and phenotype relationships and cellular state transitions, with potential implications for precision medicine and systems biology.

bioinformatics↗