metagene 0.0.16

Metagene Profiling Analysis and Visualization

Metagene

Metagene Profiling Analysis and Visualization

This tool allows you to analyze metagene, the distribution of genomic features relative to gene regions (5'UTR, CDS, 3'UTR) and create publication-ready metagene profile plots.

Installation

Install metagene using pip:

pip install metagene

minimal python version requirement: 3.12

Quick Start

Command Line Interface

Basic metagene analysis using a built-in reference:

# Using built-in human genome reference (GRCh38)
metagene -i sites.tsv.gz -r GRCh38 --with-header -m 1,2,3 -w 5 \
         -o output.tsv -s scores.tsv -p plot.png

Using a custom GTF file:

# Using custom GTF annotation
metagene -i sites.bed -g custom.gtf.gz -m 1,2,3 -w 5 \
         -o output.tsv -s scores.tsv -p plot.png

Python API

from metagene import (
    load_sites, load_reference, map_to_transcripts, 
    normalize_positions, plot_profile
)

# Load your genomic sites
sites_df = load_sites("sites.tsv.gz", with_header=True, meta_col_index=[0, 1, 2])

# Load reference genome annotation
reference_df = load_reference("GRCh38")  # or load_gtf("custom.gtf.gz")

# Perform metagene analysis
annotated_df = map_to_transcripts(sites_df, reference_df)
gene_bins, gene_stats, gene_splits = normalize_positions(
    annotated_df, split_strategy="median", bin_number=100
)

# Generate plot
plot_profile(gene_bins, gene_splits, "metagene_plot.png")

print(f"Analyzed {gene_bins['count'].sum()} sites")
print(f"Gene splits - 5'UTR: {gene_splits[0]:.3f}, CDS: {gene_splits[1]:.3f}, 3'UTR: {gene_splits[2]:.3f}")
print(f"Gene statistics - 5'UTR: {gene_stats['5UTR']}, CDS: {gene_stats['CDS']}, 3'UTR: {gene_stats['3UTR']}")

Input Formats

TSV Format

ref	pos	strand	score	pvalue
chr1	1000000	+	0.85	0.001
chr1	2000000	-	0.72	0.005

BED Format

chr1	999999	1000000	score1	0.85	+
chr1	1999999	2000000	score2	0.72	-

Column Specification

• Use -m/--meta-columns to specify coordinate columns (1-based indexing)
• Use -w/--weight-columns to specify score/weight columns
• Use -H/--with-header if your file has a header line

Built-in References

Metagene includes pre-processed gene annotations for major model organisms:

Species	Assembly	Reference
Human	GRCh38/hg38	GRCh38, hg38
	GRCh37/hg19	GRCh37, hg19
Mouse	GRCm39/mm39	GRCm39, mm39
	GRCm38/mm10	GRCm38, mm10
	mm9/NCBIM37	mm9, NCBIM37
Arabidopsis	TAIR10	TAIR10
Rice	IRGSP-1.0	IRGSP-1.0
Model Organisms	Various	dm6, ce11, WBcel235, sacCer3, etc.

Managing References

List all available references:

metagene --list

This will show all 23+ available references organized by species:

Human:
  GRCh37          - Human genome GRCh37 (Ensembl release 75)
  GRCh38          - Human genome GRCh38 (Ensembl release 110)
  hg19            - Human genome hg19 (UCSC 2021)
  hg38            - Human genome hg38 (UCSC 2022)

Mouse:
  GRCm38          - Mouse genome GRCm38 (Ensembl release 102)
  GRCm39          - Mouse genome GRCm39 (Ensembl release 110)
  mm10            - Mouse genome mm10 (UCSC 2021)
  mm39            - Mouse genome mm39 (UCSC 2024)
  mm9             - Mouse genome mm9 (UCSC 2020)

... and more

Download a specific reference:

metagene --download GRCh38

Download all references (requires ~10GB disk space):

metagene --download all

CLI Options

Usage: metagene [OPTIONS]

  Run metagene analysis on genomic sites.

Options:
  --version                       Show the version and exit.
  -i, --input PATH                Input file path (BED, GTF, TSV or CSV, etc.)
  -o, --output PATH               Output file path (TSV, CSV)
  -s, --output-score PATH         Output file for binned score statistics
  -p, --output-figure PATH        Output file for metagene plot
  -r, --reference TEXT            Built-in reference genome to use (e.g.,
                                  GRCh38, GRCm39)
  -g, --gtf PATH                  GTF/GFF file path for custom reference
  --region     Region to analyze (default: all)
  -b, --bins INTEGER              Number of bins for analysis (default: 100)
  -H, --with-header               Input file has header line
  -S, --separator TEXT            Separator for input file (default: tab)
  -m, --meta-columns TEXT         Input column indices (1-based) for genomic
                                  coordinates. The columns should contain
                                  Chromosome,Start,End,Strand or
                                  Chromosome,Site,Strand
  -w, --weight-columns TEXT       Input column indices (1-based) for
                                  weight/score values
  -n, --weight-names TEXT         Names for weight columns
  --score-transform 
                                  Transform to apply to scores (default: none)
  --normalize                     Normalize scores by transcript length
  --list                          List all available built-in references and
                                  exit
  --download TEXT                 Download a specific reference (e.g., GRCh38)
                                  or 'all' for all references
  -h, --help                      Show this message and exit.

API Reference (Core Functions)

• load_sites(file, with_header=False, meta_col_index=[0,1,2]) - Load genomic sites
• load_reference(name) - Load built-in reference genome
• load_gtf(file) - Load custom GTF annotation
• map_to_transcripts(sites, reference) - Annotate sites with gene information
• normalize_positions(annotated_sites, strategy="median") - Normalize to relative positions
• plot_profile(data, gene_splits, output_file) - Generate metagene plot

Demo

The plot shows the distribution of genomic sites across normalized gene regions:

• 5'UTR (0.0 - first split): 5' untranslated region
• CDS (first split - second split): Coding sequence
• 3'UTR (second split - 1.0): 3' untranslated region

TODO:

• How to 100k sites on human genome in less than 10s?
• The core function should be move into variant