iMAP: A Web Server for Metabolomics Data Integrative Analysis

• Main Authors: Di Zhou, Wenjia Zhu, Tao Sun, Yang Wang, Yi Chi, Tianlu Chen, Jingchao Lin
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-05-01
• Series: Frontiers in Chemistry
• Subjects: metabolomics; statistical analysis; workflow; correlation-based network; visualization
• Online Access: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fchem.2021.659656/full

Metabolomics data analysis depends on the utilization of bioinformatics tools. To meet the evolving needs of metabolomics research, several integrated platforms have been developed. Our group has developed a desktop platform IP4M (integrated Platform for Metabolomics Data Analysis) which allows users to perform a nearly complete metabolomics data analysis in one-stop. With the extensive usage of IP4M, more and more demands were raised from users worldwide for a web version and a more customized workflow. Thus, iMAP (integrated Metabolomics Analysis Platform) was developed with extended functions, improved performances, and redesigned structures. Compared with existing platforms, iMAP has more methods and usage modes. A new module was developed with an automatic pipeline for train-test set separation, feature selection, and predictive model construction and validation. A new module was incorporated with sufficient editable parameters for network construction, visualization, and analysis. Moreover, plenty of plotting tools have been upgraded for highly customized publication-ready figures. Overall, iMAP is a good alternative tool with complementary functions to existing metabolomics data analysis platforms. iMAP is freely available for academic usage at https://imap.metaboprofile.cloud/ (License MPL 2.0).