IonFlow: a galaxy tool for the analysis of ionomics data sets

Abstract

Abstract: Introduction: Inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) experiments generate complex multi-dimensional data sets that require specialist data analysis tools. Objective: Here we describe tools to facilitate analysis of the ionome composed of high-throughput elemental profiling data. Methods: IonFlow is a Galaxy tool written in R for ionomics data analysis and is freely accessible at https://github.com/wanchanglin/ionflow. It is designed as a pipeline that can process raw data to enable exploration and interpretation using multivariate statistical techniques and network-based algorithms, including principal components analysis, hierarchical clustering, relevance network extraction and analysis, and gene set enrichment analysis. Results and Conclusion: The pipeline is described and tested on two benchmark data sets of the haploid S. Cerevisiae ionome and of the human HeLa cell ionome.