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MetaX

MetaX is a novel tool for linking peptide sequences with taxonomic and functional information in Metaproteomics. We introduce the Operational Taxon-Function (OTF) concept to explore microbial roles and interactions ("who is doing what and how") within ecosystems.

MetaX also features statistical modules and plotting tools for analyzing peptides, taxa, functions, proteins, and taxon-function contributions across groups.

📥Download MetaX

abstract

Operational Taxon-Function (OTF)

Operational Taxon-Function (OTF) Unit: An operational unit which represents the association between specific taxa and biological functions.

OTF_Structure

OTF Analyzer

The Tools in OTF Analyzer

compostion

OTF Examples

Linking Taxa and Functions in different levels of the hierarchy, and various functional categories. e.g., Species-KO, Genus-CAZy, Phylum-EC, etc. Lots of visualization tools can be selected.

Network

Dots represent taxa and squares represent functions in the network.

  • OTF

Heatmap

Show all Taxa of a function.

  • tf_link_heatmap

Bar

Show all functions of a taxon

  • tf_link_bar

OTF Heatmap

Show OTFS intensity in groups(samples), e.g., Species-KO OTF Heatmap

otf_heatmap

Download & Installation

  • Desktop Version (Recommended)

    The desktop version comes fully set up and ready to use, including all required dependencies and a graphical user interface.

    Download the MetaX Desktop Version


  • Lightweight annotation CLI

    The default PyPI installation contains the OTF annotation backend and CLI without Qt:

    python -m pip install MetaXTools
    

    Run annotation with the same Python environment that installed MetaX:

    python -m metax.cli.annotate --config annotation.yaml
    
  • Headless Analyzer and Report

    Install the Analyzer without Qt, or install the complete headless Report stack:

    python -m pip install "MetaXTools[analyzer]"
    python -m pip install "MetaXTools[report]"
    python -m metax.cli.report --capabilities
    metax-report --config report.yaml --result-json metax_report_result.json
    
  • Desktop GUI / complete installation

    The desktop profile includes Analyzer, statistics, plotting, Report, notebook export, and Qt:

    python -m pip install "MetaXTools[full]"
    metax
    

    If an optional stack is missing, metax and metax-report exit with a clear message identifying the required extra.

Guidebook

  • Desktop Version(desktop):
    • Refer to the MetaX Cookbook for detailed instructions on how to use MetaX with the graphical user interface.

  • Command-line version:
    • See the Annotation CLI integration guide for global and unit-specific commands, configuration files, result JSON, exit codes, and subprocess integration.
    • Read the example documentation in the Notebook for analysis examples.

Citing

If you use MetaX in your research, please cite the following publication:

Operational Taxon-Function Framework in MetaX: Unveiling Taxonomic and Functional Associations in Metaproteomics. Wu, Q., Ning, Z., Zhang, A., Zhang, X., Sun, Z., & Figeys, D. (2025). Analytical Chemistry. DOI: 10.1021/acs.analchem.4c06645.

Metadata

Release files for MetaXTools 2.6.4

For a detailed explanation of source distributions (sdists) and built distributions (wheels), please see the package formats documentation.

Source distribution (sdist)

Source distribution for MetaXTools 2.6.4
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metaxtools-2.6.4.tar.gz 8.8 MB Details

Built distribution (wheel)

Table of built distributions (wheels) for MetaXTools 2.6.4
File Interpreter ABI Platform
metaxtools-2.6.4-py3-none-any.whl Python 3 none any Details

Total release size: 17.7 MB

Release files / metaxtools-2.6.4.tar.gz

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