metaP-server: a web-based metabolomics data analysis tool

Metabolomics is an emerging field that is based on the quantitative measurement of as many small organic molecules occurring in a biological sample as possible. Due to recent technical advances, metabolomics can now be used widely as an analytical high-throughput technology in drug testing and epidemiological metabolome and genome wide association studies. Analogous to chip-based gene expression analyses, the enormous amount of data produced by modern kit-based metabolomics experiments poses new challenges regarding their biological interpretation in the context of various sample phenotypes. We developed metaP-server to facilitate data interpretation. metaP-server provides automated and standardized data analysis for quantitative metabolomics data, covering the following steps from data acquisition to biological interpretation: (i) data quality checks, (ii) estimation of reproducibility and batch effects, (iii) hypothesis tests for multiple categorical phenotypes, (iv) correlation tests for metric phenotypes, (v) optionally including all possible pairs of metabolite concentration ratios, (vi) principal component analysis (PCA), and (vii) mapping of metabolites onto colored KEGG pathway maps. Graphical output is clickable and cross-linked to sample and metabolite identifiers. Interactive coloring of PCA and bar plots by phenotype facilitates on-line data exploration. For users of commercial metabolomics kits, cross-references to the HMDB, LipidMaps, KEGG, PubChem, and CAS databases are provided. metaP-server is freely accessible at http://metabolomics.helmholtz-muenchen.de/metap2/.