NAME

metastudent - predictor of gene ontology terms from protein sequence

SYNOPSIS

metastudent -i FASTA_FILE -o RESULT_FILE_PREFIX [--debug] [--keep-temp] [--silent] [--output-blast] [--blast-only] [--all-predictions] [--ontologies=MFO or BPO or CCO or MFO,BPO or ...] [--with-images] [--blast-kickstart-databases=BLAST_RESULT_FILE(S)] [--temp-dir=DIR] [--config=CONFIG_FILE] !!! Make sure your fasta file contains at most 500 sequences !!!

DESCRIPTION

Metastudent predicts Gene Ontology (GO) terms from the Molecular Function Ontology (MFO), Biological Process Ontology (BPO) and Cellular Component Ontology (CCO) for input protein sequences by homology-based inference from already annotated proteins.

Large (1 GB in total) data files necessary for the operation of metastudent are downloaded automatically on the first use of the program. The download is restartable. You can also make an explicit call to
metastudentdata (by default /usr/bin/metastudentdata) to download the data files. In case the data directory (by default /usr/share/metastudent-data) is not writable and you are not root, the operation is
reattempted with sudo(8).

REFERENCES

Hamp, T., Kassner, R., Seemayer, S., Vicedo, E., Schaefer, C., Achten, D., ... & Rost, B. (2013). Homology-based inference sets the bar high for protein function prediction. BMC Bioinformatics, 14(Suppl 3), S7.

OPTIONS

-i FASTA_FILE

The input fasta file. Please try to remove any special formattings (e.g. whitespaces) in the sequences before using them as input. Due to high memory usage, make sure your fasta file contains at most 500 sequences.

-o RESULT_FILE_PREFIX

The file name prefix of the output files. GO terms are organized in ontologies. Metatstudent treats each ontology differently and outputs one result file for each. For example, if <RESULT_FILE>=./myresult and MFO (Molecular Function Ontology) and BPO (Biological Process Ontology) ontologies are selected (see option --ontologies), then metastudent creates two output files: ./myresult.MFO.txt and ./myresult.BPO.txt.

--debug

Print extra debugging messages.

--keep-temp

Whether to keep the temp directories after metastudent has finished (they can be useful when errors occur or in combination with --blast-kickstart-databases).

--silent

No progress messages (stdout), only errors (stderr).

--output-blast

Whether to output the result of the BLAST runs. Useful in combination with --blast-kickstart-databases. Output file name format is RESULT_FILE_PREFIX.<BLAST_OPTIONS>.blast.

--blast-only

Whether to only output the result of the BLAST runs, and nothing else. See options --output-blast and --blast-kickstart-databases.

--all-predictions

Whether to output the prediction results of the individual predictors. File name format of the output file is <RESULT_FILE_PREFIX>.<ONTOLOGY>.<METHOD>.txt.

--no-names

Whether to exclude the actual GO term names as a column in the output prediction file(s).

--with-images

Whether to also generate an image that displays the predicted GO terms as a GO graph. This option can only be used with exactly one input sequence and only when connected to the internet.

--ontologies=MFO or BPO or CCO or MFO,BPO or ...

A comma separated list of ontologies to create predictions for. Default is MFO,BPO,CCO. If used in combination with --blast-kickstart-databases, the number and order of the ontologies must correspond to the kickstart files.

--blast-kickstart-databases=<BLAST_RESULT_FILES>

Since running BLAST is usually the part that takes the longest in metastudent, this option allows you to re-use the output of a previous run. This is useful to test, for example, different parameters or when you have lost a prediction. The number of kickstart files must correspond to the number of ontologies (see option --ontologies). Separate the file paths with commas. For example: --blast-kickstart-databases=<RESULT_FILE_MFO>,<RESULT_FILE_BPO> (kickstart for both ontologies) or --blast-kickstart-databases=,<RESULT_FILE_BPO> (only kickstart BPO; note the comma).

--temp-dir=DIR

The parent temp directory to use instead of the one specified with tmpDir in the metastudent configuration file.

--config=FILE

The path to a custom metastudent configuration file; overrides all settings of the configuration files found in the FILES section of this man page.

FILES

<package_data_dir>/metastudentrc.default

The metastudent configuration file.

<sysconfdir>/metastudentrc

The metastudent configuration file, overrides <package_data_dir>/metastudentrc.default.

<homedir>/.metastudentrc

The metastudent configuration file, overrides <sysconfdir>/metastudentrc.

EXAMPLES

The example test.fasta file can be found in <package_doc_dir>/examples (usually /usr/share/doc/metastudent/examples).

Predict the GO terms for the sequences in test.fasta for both the MFO and the BPO ontology:

 metastudent -i test.fasta -o test.result
    

Create the BLAST output to predict the MFO terms for sequences in test.fasta (not the actual predictions, yet; see next example).

 metastudent -i test.fasta -o test.result --blast-only --output-blast --ontologies=MFO
    

Predict the MFO and BPO terms for sequences in test.fasta with a precomputed MFO BLAST output (see previous example; note the comma at the end).

 metastudent -i test.fasta -o test.result --ontologies=MFO,BPO --blast-kickstart-databases=test.result_eval0.001_iters3_srcexp.mfo.blast,
    

BUGS

Please use this link to report bugs:

<https://rostlab.org/bugzilla3/enter_bug.cgi?product=metastudent>

AUTHOR

Tobias Hamp <hampt@rostlab.org>