MetPA: a web-based metabolomics tool for pathway analysis and visualization.

Abstract

MetPA (Metabolomics Pathway Analysis) is a user-friendly, web-based tool dedicated to the analysis and visualization of metabolomic data within the biological context of metabolic pathways. MetPA combines several advanced pathway enrichment analysis procedures along with the analysis of pathway topological characteristics to help identify the most relevant metabolic pathways involved in a given metabolomic study. The results are presented in a Google-map style network visualization system that supports intuitive and interactive data exploration through point-and-click, dragging and lossless zooming. Additional features include a comprehensive compound library for metabolite name conversion, automatic generation of analysis report, as well as the implementation of various univariate statistical procedures that can be accessed when users click on any metabolite node on a pathway map. MetPA currently enables analysis and visualization of 874 metabolic pathways, covering 11 common model organisms. Freely available at http://metpa.metabolomics.ca.