An Open-source Collaboration Environment for Metagenomics Research

By analyzing metagenomic data from microbial communities, the taxonomical and functional component of hundreds of previously unknown microbial communities have been elucidated in the past few years. However, metagenomic data analyses are both data- and computation-intensive, which require extensive computational power. Most of the current metagenomic data analysis software were designed to be used on a single PC (Personal Computer), which could not match with the fast increasing number of large metagenomic projects´ computational requirements. Therefore, advanced computational environment has to be developed to cope with such needs. In this paper, we proposed an open-source collaboration environment for metagenomic data analysis, which enabled the parallel analysis of multiple metagenomic datasets at the same time. By using this collaboration environment, researchers from different locations could submit their data, collaboratively configure the analysis pipeline, and perform data analysis efficiently. As of now, more than 30 metagenomic data analysis projects have already been conducted based on this environment.