Abstract
With an ever-increasing interest in understanding the relationships between the microbiota and the host, more tools to map, analyze and interpret these relationships have been developed. Most of these tools, however, focus on taxonomic profiling and comparative analysis among groups, with very few analytical tools designed to correlate microbiota and the host phenotypic data. We have developed a software program for creating a web-based integrative database and analysis platform called MANTA (Microbiota And pheNoType correlation Analysis platform). In addition to storing the data, MANTA is equipped with an intuitive user interface that can be used to correlate the microbial composition with phenotypic parameters. Using a case study, we demonstrated that MANTA was able to quickly identify the significant correlations between microbial abundances and phenotypes that are supported by previous studies. Moreover, MANTA enabled the users to quick access locally stored data that can help interpret microbiota-phenotype relations. MANTA is available at https://mizuguchilab.org/manta/ for download and the source code can be found at https://github.com/chenyian-nibio/manta.
Highlights
The genetic material of microorganisms residing within or upon the surface of the human body, especially gut microbiome, live in a mutualistic relationship with the host
We have developed MANTA, a software program for creating an integrative database and analysis platform, that can store and correlate microbiome and phenotypic data
For users who wish to use the platform in PC or Mac, we developed a stand-alone version (MANTA basic), which can be installed on a PC or Mac and provides a user interface to import the data with minimal effort
Summary
The genetic material of microorganisms residing within or upon the surface of the human body, especially gut microbiome, live in a mutualistic relationship with the host. These associations are key contributors to the host metabolism and are usually essential for human health. The microbiota of the intestinal tract (gut microbiota) can assist in breaking down nutrients that the host cannot digest or synthesizing vitamins that the host cannot produce. Alterations in the microbiota can lead to diseases such as obesity [1,2,3,4]. The study of microbiota has considerable importance for public health.
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