Computational Biomedicine Laboratory, Principe Felipe Research Center (CIPF), Eduardo Primo Yúfera Street, 3, 46012, Valencia, Spain.
Biomedical Imaging Unit FISABIO-CIPF, Fundación Para el Fomento de la Investigación Sanitaria y Biomédica de la Comunidad Valenciana, 46012, Valencia, Spain.
Biol Sex Differ. 2024 Aug 27;15(1):66. doi: 10.1186/s13293-024-00640-0.
While sex-based differences in various health scenarios have been thoroughly acknowledged in the literature, we lack sufficient tools and methods that allow for an in-depth analysis of sex as a variable in biomedical research. To fill this knowledge gap, we created MetaFun as an easy-to-use web-based tool to meta-analyze multiple transcriptomic datasets with a sex-based perspective to gain major statistical power and biological soundness.
MetaFun is a complete suite that allows the analysis of transcriptomics data and the exploration of the results at all levels, performing single-dataset exploratory analysis, differential gene expression, gene set functional enrichment, and finally, combining results in a functional meta-analysis. Which biological processes, molecular functions or cellular components are altered in a common pattern in different transcriptomic studies when comparing male and female patients? This and other biological questions of interest can be answered with the use of MetaFun. This tool is available at https://bioinfo.cipf.es/metafun while additional help can be found at https://gitlab.com/ubb-cipf/metafunweb/-/wikis/Summary .
Overall, Metafun is the first open-access web-based tool to identify consensus biological functions across multiple transcriptomic datasets, helping to elucidate sex differences in numerous diseases. Its use will facilitate the generation of novel biological knowledge that can be used in the research and application of Personalized Medicine considering the sex of patients.
尽管文献中已经充分认识到各种健康情况下的性别差异，但我们缺乏足够的工具和方法，无法深入分析生物医学研究中的性别这一变量。为了填补这一知识空白，我们创建了 MetaFun，这是一个易于使用的基于网络的工具，可从性别角度对多个转录组数据集进行荟萃分析，以获得主要的统计能力和生物学稳健性。
MetaFun 是一个完整的套件，允许对转录组数据进行分析，并在所有级别上探索结果，执行单个数据集的探索性分析、差异基因表达、基因集功能富集，最后在功能荟萃分析中组合结果。当比较男性和女性患者时，不同转录组研究中哪些生物学过程、分子功能或细胞成分以共同模式发生改变？使用 MetaFun 可以回答这些和其他感兴趣的生物学问题。该工具可在 https://bioinfo.cipf.es/metafun 上获得，更多帮助可在 https://gitlab.com/ubb-cipf/metafunweb/-/wikis/Summary 上找到。
总的来说，MetaFun 是第一个用于识别多个转录组数据集之间一致生物学功能的开放获取的基于网络的工具，有助于阐明许多疾病中的性别差异。它的使用将有助于生成新的生物学知识，这些知识可用于考虑患者性别的个性化医学的研究和应用。
