This vignette explains the main concepts for data-processing and statistical analysis of (DIA) proteomics data using msqrob2. To illustrate these concepts, we will use using a publicly available spike-in study published by Staes et al. (Staes et al. 2024). They spiked digested UPS proteins in a yeast digested background at the following ratio’s (yeast:ups ratio 10:1, 10:2, 10:4, 10:8, 10:10). Here we will use a subset of the data, i.e. dilutions 10:2, 10:4 and 10:8. We will use output of the search engine Spectronaut. The main search output for this Spectronaut version was stored in a report.parquet file.

DIA-NN provides multiple quantifications, e.g. derived from the MS1 or MS2 spectra, and at precursor or protein (protein group) level. The term ‘precursor’ refers to a charged peptide species and is the basic unit of identification and quantification in DIA. Hence, in the context of DIA we refer to a precursor table, instead of to a PSM table in DDA.

Examples of different quantities are:

  • raw MS1 area: Ms1.Area, normalised MS1 Area: Ms1.Normalised, MS2 Precursor quantities: Precursor.Quantity, Normalised MS2 Precursor quantities: Precursor.Normalised, etc., which are all at the precursor level
  • MS2 based summary at the protein (protein group)-level: PG.MaxLFQ

In this vignette, we will use the Precursor.Quantity column so as to illustrate all steps. If you prefer to start from the Precursor.Normalised intensities, you can skip the normalisation step as the normalisation already has been done by DIA-NN internally.

1 Load packages

We load the msqrob2 package, along with additional packages for data manipulation and visualisation.

suppressPackageStartupMessages({
library("QFeatures")  
library("dplyr") 
library("tidyr")
library("ggplot2")
library("msqrob2")    
library("stringr")
library("ExploreModelMatrix")
library("kableExtra")
library("ComplexHeatmap")
library("scater")
})

2 Data

2.1 Precursor table

We load the output from DIA-NN parquet file. Can be file path to local file or url to file that lives on the web.

precursorFile <- "https://github.com/statOmics/msqrob2data/raw/refs/heads/main/dia/spikeinStaes/spikein248-staesetal2024.parquet" 

We can import the report.parquet file using the read_parquet function from the arrow package. Note, that older versions of DIA-NN store the output as report.tsv. which we import using the fread function. Both read_parquet and fread can import data directly from the web as well as data from local files on your computer.

precursors <- arrow::read_parquet(precursorFile) # function from the arrow package
## For older versions of Spectronaut, where the results are stored as tsv files. 
## Note that the precursorFile then would point to "report.tsv" 
## precursors <- data.table::fread(precursorFile) 
knitr::kable(head(precursors))
Run.Index Run Channel Precursor.Id Modified.Sequence Stripped.Sequence Precursor.Charge Precursor.Lib.Index Decoy Proteotypic Precursor.Mz Protein.Ids Protein.Group Protein.Names Genes RT iRT Predicted.RT Predicted.iRT IM iIM Predicted.IM Predicted.iIM Precursor.Quantity Precursor.Normalised Ms1.Area Ms1.Normalised Ms1.Apex.Area Ms1.Apex.Mz.Delta Normalisation.Factor Quantity.Quality Empirical.Quality Normalisation.Noise Ms1.Profile.Corr Evidence Mass.Evidence Channel.Evidence Ms1.Total.Signal.Before Ms1.Total.Signal.After RT.Start RT.Stop FWHM PG.TopN PG.MaxLFQ Genes.TopN Genes.MaxLFQ Genes.MaxLFQ.Unique PG.MaxLFQ.Quality Genes.MaxLFQ.Quality Genes.MaxLFQ.Unique.Quality Q.Value PEP Global.Q.Value Lib.Q.Value Peptidoform.Q.Value Global.Peptidoform.Q.Value Lib.Peptidoform.Q.Value PTM.Site.Confidence Site.Occupancy.Probabilities Protein.Sites Lib.PTM.Site.Confidence Translated.Q.Value Channel.Q.Value PG.Q.Value PG.PEP GG.Q.Value Protein.Q.Value Global.PG.Q.Value Lib.PG.Q.Value Best.Fr.Mz Best.Fr.Mz.Delta
0 B000254_Ap_6883_EXT-765_DIA_Yeast_UPS2_ratio02_DIA (UniMod:1)AAVTLHLR2 (UniMod:1)AAVTLHLR AAVTLHLR 2 0 0 1 461.7771 P38998 P38998 LYS1_YEAST LYS1 89.48647 34.21962 89.64584 34.32372 0 0 0 0 1027105.2 1018664.5 1664103 1650427 1235652.9 -0.0019836 0.9917820 0.8068524 0.9587077 -0.0107658 0.8455485 2.328422 0.6659890 0.9694718 1446081536 1354918656 89.27837 89.83672 0.1471047 0 60736892 0 60736892 60736892 0.9713600 0.9713600 0.9713600 0.0037350 0.0346908 6e-07 1.8e-06 0.0058624 0.0006297 0.0004264 1 (UniMod:1){1.000000}AAVTLHLR2 [P38998:nA2] 1 0 0 0.0003065 0.0006127 0.0003067 0.0003116 0.0002956 0.0002814 639.3937 -0.0043335
1 B000258_Ap_6883_EXT-765_DIA_Yeast_UPS2_ratio04_DIA (UniMod:1)AAVTLHLR2 (UniMod:1)AAVTLHLR AAVTLHLR 2 0 0 1 461.7771 P38998 P38998 LYS1_YEAST LYS1 88.51812 34.21962 88.65327 34.23263 0 0 0 0 1686047.0 1473639.0 2225964 1945538 2138060.2 -0.0012512 0.8740202 0.8539391 0.7675559 0.0606278 0.9467068 2.621551 0.9197075 0.7442634 1707504896 1714693888 88.38112 88.65714 0.1049480 0 59386180 0 59386180 59386180 0.9682981 0.9682981 0.9682981 0.0000006 0.0000010 6e-07 1.8e-06 0.0007060 0.0006297 0.0004264 1 (UniMod:1){1.000000}AAVTLHLR2 [P38998:nA2] 1 0 0 0.0003028 0.0006007 0.0003029 0.0003108 0.0002956 0.0002814 538.3460 -0.0010986
2 B000262_Ap_6883_EXT-765_DIA_Yeast_UPS2_ratio08_DIA (UniMod:1)AAVTLHLR2 (UniMod:1)AAVTLHLR AAVTLHLR 2 0 0 1 461.7771 P38998 P38998 LYS1_YEAST LYS1 88.19032 34.21962 88.42429 33.99163 0 0 0 0 1484137.0 1497021.4 2156443 2175164 1850866.0 -0.0018616 1.0086815 0.8370125 0.9024460 0.0352767 0.9391663 1.963248 0.6607722 0.5847857 1906061952 2011915136 87.98146 88.39668 0.1602550 0 61945576 0 61945576 61945576 0.9670781 0.9670781 0.9670781 0.0022817 0.0274225 6e-07 1.8e-06 0.0059578 0.0006297 0.0004264 1 (UniMod:1){1.000000}AAVTLHLR2 [P38998:nA2] 1 0 0 0.0003133 0.0006259 0.0003135 0.0003190 0.0002956 0.0002814 639.3937 0.0012817
3 B000278_Ap_6883_EXT-765_DIA_Yeast_UPS2_ratio02_DIA_2 (UniMod:1)AAVTLHLR2 (UniMod:1)AAVTLHLR AAVTLHLR 2 0 0 1 461.7771 P38998 P38998 LYS1_YEAST LYS1 88.94958 34.21962 89.25366 33.75805 0 0 0 0 1202390.5 1186230.2 1752379 1728827 1130526.8 -0.0038757 0.9865599 0.7660662 0.7737662 0.0300994 0.5843989 2.661267 0.6917942 0.8114025 2323055360 2137220352 88.61057 89.15668 0.2167290 0 61787356 0 61787356 61787356 0.9639115 0.9639115 0.9639115 0.0026284 0.0164647 6e-07 1.8e-06 0.0061239 0.0006297 0.0004264 1 (UniMod:1){1.000000}AAVTLHLR2 [P38998:nA2] 1 0 0 0.0003246 0.0006370 0.0003248 0.0003308 0.0002956 0.0002814 425.2619 0.0019226
5 B000286_Ap_6883_EXT-765_DIA_Yeast_UPS2_ratio08_DIA_2 (UniMod:1)AAVTLHLR2 (UniMod:1)AAVTLHLR AAVTLHLR 2 0 0 1 461.7771 P38998 P38998 LYS1_YEAST LYS1 88.49445 34.21962 88.61003 34.13313 0 0 0 0 475073.6 579242.2 1481789 1806699 777120.9 -0.0014648 1.2192687 0.6968042 0.7491062 0.1018161 0.0000000 1.700542 0.3975840 0.1695192 1270731776 1315600640 88.28562 88.63584 0.1518549 0 63859400 0 63859400 63859400 0.9677207 0.9677207 0.9677207 0.0040565 0.0318976 6e-07 1.8e-06 0.0077074 0.0006297 0.0004264 1 (UniMod:1){1.000000}AAVTLHLR2 [P38998:nA2] 1 0 0 0.0003152 0.0006296 0.0003154 0.0003210 0.0002956 0.0002814 639.3937 0.0092773
6 B000302_Ap_6883_EXT-765_DIA_Yeast_UPS2_ratio02_DIA_3 (UniMod:1)AAVTLHLR2 (UniMod:1)AAVTLHLR AAVTLHLR 2 0 0 1 461.7771 P38998 P38998 LYS1_YEAST LYS1 88.94778 34.21962 89.22704 33.83727 0 0 0 0 1211047.2 1278841.4 1902638 2009148 1505334.4 -0.0023804 1.0559797 0.8122462 0.9176636 -0.0058500 0.8568795 2.149787 0.2013753 0.9174258 1576011776 1611237888 88.80907 89.22405 0.1854964 0 57830312 0 57830312 57830312 0.9690518 0.9690518 0.9690518 0.0038881 0.0323859 6e-07 1.8e-06 0.0095169 0.0006297 0.0004264 1 (UniMod:1){1.000000}AAVTLHLR2 [P38998:nA2] 1 0 0 0.0003108 0.0006149 0.0003110 0.0003160 0.0002956 0.0002814 639.3937 -0.0004883

Each row in the precursor data table is in “long format” and contains information about one precursor in a specific run (the table below shows the first 6 rows). The columns contains various descriptors about the precursor, such as its sequence, its charge, run, etc.

We select variables to reduce the memory footprint.

precursors <- precursors |> 
  select(
         Run, 
         Precursor.Id, 
         Modified.Sequence, 
         Stripped.Sequence, 
         Precursor.Charge, 
         Protein.Group, 
         Protein.Names,
         Protein.Ids,
         Genes,
         Precursor.Quantity,
         Precursor.Normalised,
         Normalisation.Factor,
         Ms1.Area,
         Ms1.Normalised,
         PG.MaxLFQ,
         Q.Value, 
         Lib.Q.Value,
         PG.Q.Value,
         Lib.PG.Q.Value,
         Proteotypic,
         Decoy, # Not available in older versions of DIA-NN
         RT)

Unlike for real experiments, we known the ground truth for this dataset: UPS proteins were spiked in at different concentrations and are thus differentially abundant (DA, spiked in). Yeast proteins consist of the background proteome that is the same in all samples and are thus non-DA.

precursors <- precursors |> 
  mutate(species = grepl(pattern = "UPS",Protein.Group) |> 
           as.factor() |>
           recode("TRUE"="ups","FALSE" = "yeast"))
precursors |> 
  pull(species) |>
  table()
## 
##  yeast    ups 
## 301195   4481

Quick check on distribution of precursors MS2 intensities.

precursors |> 
  ggplot(aes(x = log2(Precursor.Quantity))) +
  geom_density() +
  theme_minimal()
## Warning: Removed 1 row containing non-finite outside the scale range
## (`stat_density()`).

2.2 Sample annotation table

The sample annotation table) is not available and can be generated from the run labels, as the researchers included information on the design in the filenames.

We will make a new data frame with the annotation.

  1. We first generate variable runCol, that gives an overview of the different runs in the experiment, i.e. the unique names in the column Run of the report file. This is a mandatory column in the annotation file that is required by the readQFeatures function that will be used to generate a QFeatures object with the quant data.

  2. Next we generate variable sampleId, to pinpoint the different samples in the dataset. This can be extracted from the run names as the researchers have stored information on the meta data in the file names for each run. E.g. for run B000282_Ap_6883_EXT-765_DIA_Yeast_UPS2_ratio04_DIA_2 this is the ratio, i.e. ratio04, and the replicate, i.e. _2 after DIA. Note, that the first replicate has no number.

    1. We first replace the redundant pattern “DIA” with an empty character string.
    2. Next we split the strings according to the pattern “UPS2” using the strsplit function and
    3. keep the right part of the string. We do this by looping over the list from strplit with an sapply loop, which takes the output of b. as its first argument, uses the function ‘[’ to subset vector of strings in each list element and uses an optional argument ‘2’ to select the second string of the vector (right part).
  3. We add the variable ratio by parsing the variable stringId and

    1. replacing pattern “ratio” by an empty string using the gsub function
    2. splitting the output of gsub according to pattern "_" and
    3. keeping the left part of the string (first element of the vector of strings in each list item of the substr output)
    4. converting the output of c to an integer
    5. converting the ratio into a factor
  4. We add the variable rep by parsing the variable stringId, and

    1. splitting it according to pattern "_",
    2. keeping the right part of the string (second element of the vector of strings in each list item of the substr output)
    3. replacing NA by 1, as for the first replicate no number was added to the filename
    4. converting it into a factor
(annot <- data.frame(runCol = precursors |> 
                       pull(Run) |> 
                       unique() # 1. 
                   ) |>
    mutate(sampleId = gsub(x = runCol, pattern = "_DIA", replacement = "") |> #2.a
               str_split("UPS2_") |> #2.b
               sapply(`[`, 2) #2.c
           ) |>
    mutate(
           condition =  gsub("ratio", "", sampleId) |> #3.a
               str_split("_") |> #3.b
               sapply(`[`, 1) |> #3.c
               as.numeric() |> #3.d
               as.factor(), #3.e
           rep = sampleId |> 
               str_split("_") |> #4.a
               sapply(`[`, 2) |> #4.b
               replace_na(replace = "1") |> #4.c
               as.factor(), #4.d
           ratio = condition |> 
             as.character() |> 
             as.double()
           )
)
##                                                 runCol  sampleId condition rep
## 1   B000254_Ap_6883_EXT-765_DIA_Yeast_UPS2_ratio02_DIA   ratio02         2   1
## 2   B000258_Ap_6883_EXT-765_DIA_Yeast_UPS2_ratio04_DIA   ratio04         4   1
## 3   B000262_Ap_6883_EXT-765_DIA_Yeast_UPS2_ratio08_DIA   ratio08         8   1
## 4 B000278_Ap_6883_EXT-765_DIA_Yeast_UPS2_ratio02_DIA_2 ratio02_2         2   2
## 5 B000286_Ap_6883_EXT-765_DIA_Yeast_UPS2_ratio08_DIA_2 ratio08_2         8   2
## 6 B000302_Ap_6883_EXT-765_DIA_Yeast_UPS2_ratio02_DIA_3 ratio02_3         2   3
## 7 B000306_Ap_6883_EXT-765_DIA_Yeast_UPS2_ratio04_DIA_3 ratio04_3         4   3
## 8 B000310_Ap_6883_EXT-765_DIA_Yeast_UPS2_ratio08_DIA_3 ratio08_3         8   3
## 9 B000282_Ap_6883_EXT-765_DIA_Yeast_UPS2_ratio04_DIA_2 ratio04_2         4   2
##   ratio
## 1     2
## 2     4
## 3     8
## 4     2
## 5     8
## 6     2
## 7     4
## 8     8
## 9     4

2.3 Convert to QFeatures

First, recall that the precursor table is file in long format. Every quantitative column in the precursor table contains information for multiple runs. Therefore, the function split the table based on the run identifier, given by the runCol argument (for DIA-NN, that identifier is contained in Run). So, the QFeatures object after import will contain as many sets as there are runs. Next, the function links the annotation table with the PSM data. To achieve this, the annotation table must contain a runCol column that provides the run identifier in which each sample has been acquired, and this information will be used to match the identifiers in the Run column of the precursor table.

Here, we will use the Precursor.Quantity column as quantification input.

(qf <- readQFeatures(assayData = precursors,  
                              colData = annot,
                              quantCols = "Precursor.Quantity",
                              runCol = "Run",
                              fnames = "Precursor.Id"))
## Checking arguments.
## Loading data as a 'SummarizedExperiment' object.
## Splitting data in runs.
## 
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## Formatting sample annotations (colData).
## Formatting data as a 'QFeatures' object.
## Setting assay rownames.
## An instance of class QFeatures (type: bulk) with 9 sets:
## 
##  [1] B000254_Ap_6883_EXT-765_DIA_Yeast_UPS2_ratio02_DIA: SummarizedExperiment with 34471 rows and 1 columns 
##  [2] B000258_Ap_6883_EXT-765_DIA_Yeast_UPS2_ratio04_DIA: SummarizedExperiment with 35142 rows and 1 columns 
##  [3] B000262_Ap_6883_EXT-765_DIA_Yeast_UPS2_ratio08_DIA: SummarizedExperiment with 34028 rows and 1 columns 
##  ...
##  [7] B000302_Ap_6883_EXT-765_DIA_Yeast_UPS2_ratio02_DIA_3: SummarizedExperiment with 33091 rows and 1 columns 
##  [8] B000306_Ap_6883_EXT-765_DIA_Yeast_UPS2_ratio04_DIA_3: SummarizedExperiment with 34472 rows and 1 columns 
##  [9] B000310_Ap_6883_EXT-765_DIA_Yeast_UPS2_ratio08_DIA_3: SummarizedExperiment with 33724 rows and 1 columns

3 Data preprocessing

The data preprocessing workflow for DIA data is similar to the workflow for DDA-LFQ data, but there are suble differences as we start from precursor level data and have additional columns.

3.1 Encoding missing values

We first replace any zero in the quantitative data with an NA.

qf <- zeroIsNA(qf, names(qf))

Note that msqrob2 can handle missing data without having to rely on hard-to-verify imputation assumptions, which is our general recommendation. However, msqrob2 does not prevent users from using imputation, which can be performed by starting from Spectronaut output with imputed values or by imputing the data themselves, e.g. by using impute() from the QFeatures package.

3.2 Precursor Filtering

Filtering removes low-quality and unreliable precursors that would otherwise introduce noise and artefacts in the data.

3.2.1 Remove questionable identifications

We apply standard filtering advised by DIA-NN:

  1. q-value threshold of 0.01 for the identification of precursors (Q.Value) and protein groups (PG.Q.Value). If the file is processed via matching between runs, it is also useful to filter on Lib.Q.Value and Lib.PG.Q.Value.

  2. Remove precursors that could not be mapped, i.e. when Precursor.Id column is an empty string.

  3. Filter decoys, i.e. only keep precursors for which the Decoy column equals 0. (Note, that the Decoy column is not present in the output of older versions of DIA-NN)

  4. Keeping only proteotypic peptides, which map uniquely to a specific protein.

qf <-  qf |>
  filterFeatures(~ Q.Value <= 0.01 & #1.
                     PG.Q.Value <= 0.01 &  #1.
                     Lib.Q.Value <= 0.01 & #1.
                     Lib.PG.Q.Value <= 0.01 & #1.
                     Precursor.Id != "" & #2.
                     Decoy == 0 & #3. (Note, that this filter is not available with previous versions of DIA-NN, as the report.tsv file did not include a Decoy column. So other strategies are needed if Decoys are in the output file.)
                     Proteotypic == 1) #4.
## 'Q.Value' found in 9 out of 9 assay(s).'PG.Q.Value' found in 9 out of 9 assay(s).'Lib.Q.Value' found in 9 out of 9 assay(s).'Lib.PG.Q.Value' found in 9 out of 9 assay(s).'Precursor.Id' found in 9 out of 9 assay(s).'Decoy' found in 9 out of 9 assay(s).'Proteotypic' found in 9 out of 9 assay(s).

Note, that it is important that the filtering criteria are not distorting the distribution of the test statistics in the downstream analysis for features that are non-DA. It can be shown that filtering will not induce bias results when the filtering criterion is independent of test statistic. The criteria that we proposed above are all based on the results of the identification step, hence, they are independent of the downstream test statistics that will be used to prioritize DA proteins.

3.2.2 Assay joining

Up to now, the data from different runs were kept in separate assays. We can now join the filtered sets into an precursor set using joinAssays(). Sets are joined by stacking the columns (samples) in a matrix and rows (features) are matched according to a row identifier, here the Precursor.Id. We will store the result in the assay with name: precursor.

(qf <- joinAssays(
  x = qf,
  i = names(qf),
  fcol = "Precursor.Id",
  name = "precursors"
  ))
## Using 'Precursor.Id' to join assays.
## An instance of class QFeatures (type: bulk) with 10 sets:
## 
##  [1] B000254_Ap_6883_EXT-765_DIA_Yeast_UPS2_ratio02_DIA: SummarizedExperiment with 32848 rows and 1 columns 
##  [2] B000258_Ap_6883_EXT-765_DIA_Yeast_UPS2_ratio04_DIA: SummarizedExperiment with 33491 rows and 1 columns 
##  [3] B000262_Ap_6883_EXT-765_DIA_Yeast_UPS2_ratio08_DIA: SummarizedExperiment with 32406 rows and 1 columns 
##  ...
##  [8] B000306_Ap_6883_EXT-765_DIA_Yeast_UPS2_ratio04_DIA_3: SummarizedExperiment with 32829 rows and 1 columns 
##  [9] B000310_Ap_6883_EXT-765_DIA_Yeast_UPS2_ratio08_DIA_3: SummarizedExperiment with 32128 rows and 1 columns 
##  [10] precursors: SummarizedExperiment with 38615 rows and 9 columns

3.2.3 Filtering: Remove highly missing precursors

We keep peptides that were observed at last 4 times out of the \(n = 9\) samples, so that we can estimate the peptide characteristics. We tolerate the following proportion of NAs: \(\text{pNA} = \frac{(n - 4)}{n} = 0.556\), so we keep peptides that are observed in at least 44.4% of the samples, which corresponds to one treatment condition. This is an arbitrary value that may need to be adjusted depending on the experiment and the data set.

nObs <- 4
n <- ncol(qf[["precursors"]])

(qf <- filterNA(qf, i = "precursors", pNA = (n - nObs) / n))
## An instance of class QFeatures (type: bulk) with 10 sets:
## 
##  [1] B000254_Ap_6883_EXT-765_DIA_Yeast_UPS2_ratio02_DIA: SummarizedExperiment with 32848 rows and 1 columns 
##  [2] B000258_Ap_6883_EXT-765_DIA_Yeast_UPS2_ratio04_DIA: SummarizedExperiment with 33491 rows and 1 columns 
##  [3] B000262_Ap_6883_EXT-765_DIA_Yeast_UPS2_ratio08_DIA: SummarizedExperiment with 32406 rows and 1 columns 
##  ...
##  [8] B000306_Ap_6883_EXT-765_DIA_Yeast_UPS2_ratio04_DIA_3: SummarizedExperiment with 32829 rows and 1 columns 
##  [9] B000310_Ap_6883_EXT-765_DIA_Yeast_UPS2_ratio08_DIA_3: SummarizedExperiment with 32128 rows and 1 columns 
##  [10] precursors: SummarizedExperiment with 34796 rows and 9 columns

3.2.4 Filter one-hit wonders

Here, we remove proteins that can only be found by one peptide, as such proteins may not be trustworthy.

  1. We first calculate how many distinct peptides map to each protein (Protein.Group). We use the stripped precursor sequence, i.e. sequence of the base peptide for this purpose.

  2. We store this information in the row data of the precursors assay

  3. We filter precursors of one-hit wonder proteins.

# Filter for peptides per protein
pepsPerProtDf <- qf[["precursors"]] |> 
    rowData() |> 
    data.frame() |>
    dplyr::select("Stripped.Sequence", "Protein.Group") |>
    group_by(Protein.Group) |>
    mutate(pepsPerProt = Stripped.Sequence |>
               unique() |> length()
           ) #1.

rowData(qf[["precursors"]])$pepsPerProt <- pepsPerProtDf$pepsPerProt #2. 

qf <- filterFeatures(qf, 
                              ~ pepsPerProt > 1, 
                              keep = TRUE) #3.
## 'pepsPerProt' found in 1 out of 10 assay(s).

3.3 Log-transformation

We perform log2-transformation with logTransform() from the QFeatures package. We use base = 2 and store the result in a new summarized experiment named precursors_log

qf <- logTransform(qf, 
                            base = 2, 
                            i = "precursors", 
                            name = "precursors_log")

3.4 Normalisation

The most common objective of MS-based proteomics experiments is to understand the biological changes in protein abundance between experimental conditions. However, changes in measurements between groups can be caused due to technical factors. For instance, there are systematic fluctuations from run-to-run that shift the measured intensity distribution. We can this explore as follows:

  1. We extract the sets containing the log transformed data. This is performed using QFeatures’ 3-way subsetting.
  2. We use longForm() to convert the QFeatures object into a long table, including condition and concentration for filtering and colouring.
  3. We visualise the density of the quantitative values within each sample. We colour each sample based on its spike-in condition.
qf[, , "precursors_log"] |> #1.
  longForm(colvars = c( "rep", "condition")) |>  #2. 
  data.frame() |> 
  filter(!is.na(value)) |>
  ggplot() + #3.
  aes(x = value,
      colour = condition,
      group = colname) +
  geom_density() +
  theme_minimal()
## Warning: 'experiments' dropped; see 'drops()'
## harmonizing input:
##   removing 18 sampleMap rows not in names(experiments)

Even in this clean synthetic data set (same yeast background with some spiked UPS proteins), the marginal precursor intensity distributions across samples are not well aligned. Ignoring this effect will increase the noise and reduce the statistical power of the experiment, and may also, in case of unbalanced designs, introduce confounding effects that will bias the results.

There are many ways to perform the normalisation, e.g.
median centering is a popular choice. If we subtract the sample median at the log scale from each precursor log2 intensity, this basically boils down to calculating log-ratio’s between the precursor intensity and its sample median. Here, we choose to work with offsets, that are chosen in such a way so that the distributions are centered around the location of a reference sample. E.g. the median of the sample medians.

Note that users can also use all normalisation functions that are provided in QFeatures, i.e. by replacing the sweep function by QFeatures::normalize.

qf <- sweep( #4. Subtract log2 norm factor column-by-column (MARGIN = 2)
  qf,
  MARGIN = 2,
  STATS = nfLogMedian(qf,"precursors_log"),
  i = "precursors_log",
  name = "precursors_norm"
)
## This function aims to calculate norm factors on a log scale, 
##           the input data are assumed to be on the log-scale!

We explore the effect of the global normalisation in the subsequent plot.

Formally, the function applies the following operation on each sample \(i\) across all precursors \(p\):

\[ y_{ip}^{\text{norm}} = y_{ip} - \log_2(nf_i) \]

with \(y_{ip}\) the log2-transformed intensities and \(\log_2(nf_i)\) the log2-transformed norm factor. Upon normalisation, we can see that the distribution of the \(y_{ip}^{\text{norm}}\) nicely overlap (using the same code as above)

qf[, , "precursors_norm"] |>
  longForm(colvars = colnames(colData(qf))) |> 
  data.frame() |> 
  filter(!is.na(value)) |>
  ggplot() + 
  aes(x = value,
      colour = condition,
      group = colname) +
  geom_density() +
  labs(subtitle = "Normalised log2 precursor intensities") +
  theme_minimal()
## Warning: 'experiments' dropped; see 'drops()'
## harmonizing input:
##   removing 27 sampleMap rows not in names(experiments)

3.5 Summarisation

Here, we summarise the precursor-level data into protein intensities using maxLFQ. maxLFQ first calculates all pairwise log ratio’s between samples only using their shared precursors. Particularly, it uses the median of the log ratio’s between the shared precursors, i.e. \[r_{ij} = median(y_{sj}-y_{si})\].
Hence, it first eliminates peptide effects. It then estimates the summaries by solving

\[ \sum_i\sum_j(y^{prot}_j - y^{prot}_i - r_ij)^2 \] It is implemented in the maxLFQ function of the iq package. A maxLFQ like summarisation is used by default in DIA-NN.

aggregateFeatures() streamlines summarisation. It requires the name of a rowData column to group the precursors into proteins (or protein groups), here Protein.Group. We provide the summarisation approach through the fun argument. Other summarisation methods are available from the MsCoreUtils package, see ?aggregateFeatures for a comprehensive list. The function will return a QFeatures object with a new set that we called proteins.

Note, that maxLFQ can take a long time for large datasets. In that case we suggest to replace function(X) iq::maxLFQ(X)$estimate by MsCoreUtils::medianPolish, na.rm = TRUE. Note that the optional argument na.rm = TRUE is needed when using medianPolish because the data contains missing values as we did not adopt imputation.

(qf <- aggregateFeatures(
  qf, i = "precursors_norm", 
  name = "proteins",
  fcol = "Protein.Group", 
  fun = function(X) iq::maxLFQ(X)$estimate
  #fun = MsCoreUtils::medianPolish, na.rm = TRUE
))
## 
  |                                                                            
  |                                                                      |   0%
  |                                                                            
  |======================================================================| 100%
## The following messages occurred during aggregation:
## 
## Your quantitative data contain missing values. Please read the relevant
## section(s) in the aggregateFeatures manual page regarding the effects
## of missing values on data aggregation.
## 
## Occurred during the aggregation of set(s): B000254_Ap_6883_EXT-765_DIA_Yeast_UPS2_ratio02_DIA
## An instance of class QFeatures (type: bulk) with 13 sets:
## 
##  [1] B000254_Ap_6883_EXT-765_DIA_Yeast_UPS2_ratio02_DIA: SummarizedExperiment with 32848 rows and 1 columns 
##  [2] B000258_Ap_6883_EXT-765_DIA_Yeast_UPS2_ratio04_DIA: SummarizedExperiment with 33491 rows and 1 columns 
##  [3] B000262_Ap_6883_EXT-765_DIA_Yeast_UPS2_ratio08_DIA: SummarizedExperiment with 32406 rows and 1 columns 
##  ...
##  [11] precursors_log: SummarizedExperiment with 34421 rows and 9 columns 
##  [12] precursors_norm: SummarizedExperiment with 34421 rows and 9 columns 
##  [13] proteins: SummarizedExperiment with 3121 rows and 9 columns

4 Data exploration and QC

Data exploration aims to highlight the main sources of variation in the data prior to data modelling and can pinpoint to outlying or off-behaving samples.

4.1 Marginal distribution at precursor and protein level

qf[, , "precursors_norm"] |>
  longForm(colvars = colnames(colData(qf))) |> 
  data.frame() |> 
  filter(!is.na(value)) |>
  ggplot() + 
  aes(x = value,
      colour = condition,
      group = colname) +
  geom_density() +
  theme_minimal() +
   labs(subtitle = "Normalised log2 precursor intensities")
## Warning: 'experiments' dropped; see 'drops()'
## harmonizing input:
##   removing 36 sampleMap rows not in names(experiments)

qf[, , "precursors_norm"] |>
  longForm(colvars = colnames(colData(qf))) |> 
  data.frame() |> 
  filter(!is.na(value)) |>
  ggplot() + 
  aes(x = sampleId,
      y = value,
      colour = condition,
      group = colname) +
  xlab("sample") +
  geom_boxplot() +
  theme_minimal() +
   labs(subtitle = "Normalised log2 precursor intensities")
## Warning: 'experiments' dropped; see 'drops()'
## harmonizing input:
##   removing 36 sampleMap rows not in names(experiments)

qf[, , "proteins"] |>
  longForm(colvars = colnames(colData(qf))) |> 
  data.frame() |> 
  filter(!is.na(value)) |>
  ggplot() + 
  aes(x = value,
      colour = condition,
      group = colname) +
  geom_density() +
  theme_minimal() +
   labs(subtitle = "Normalised log2 protein intensities")
## Warning: 'experiments' dropped; see 'drops()'
## harmonizing input:
##   removing 36 sampleMap rows not in names(experiments)

qf[, , "proteins"] |>
  longForm(colvars = colnames(colData(qf))) |> 
  data.frame() |> 
  filter(!is.na(value)) |>
  ggplot() + 
  aes(x = sampleId,
      y = value,
      colour = condition,
      group = colname) +
  xlab("sample") +
  geom_boxplot() +
  theme_minimal() +
   labs(subtitle = "Normalised log2 protein intensities")
## Warning: 'experiments' dropped; see 'drops()'
## harmonizing input:
##   removing 36 sampleMap rows not in names(experiments)

4.2 Charge state

qf[, , "precursors_norm"] |>
  longForm(colvars = colnames(colData(qf)), rowvars = "Precursor.Charge") |>
  as.data.frame() |>
  filter(!is.na(value)) |>
  filter(Precursor.Charge<=4) |> 
ggplot(aes(x = sampleId)) +
  geom_bar(aes(fill = factor(Precursor.Charge, levels = 4:1)),
           colour = "black") +
  labs(title = "Peptide types per sample",
       x = "Sample",
       fill = "Charge state") +
  theme_bw()
## Warning: 'experiments' dropped; see 'drops()'
## harmonizing input:
##   removing 36 sampleMap rows not in names(experiments)

4.3 Identifications per sample

qf[,,"precursors_norm"] |> 
  longForm(colvars = colnames(colData(qf)), 
           rowvars= c("Precursor.Id", 
                      "Protein.Group", 
                      "Stripped.Sequence",
                      "Precursor.Charge")) |>
  data.frame() |>
  filter(!is.na(value)) |>
  mutate(cond_rep = paste0("ratio", condition, "_", rep)) |>
  group_by(condition, cond_rep) |>
  summarise(Precursors = length(unique(Precursor.Id)),
            `Protein Groups` = length(unique(Protein.Group))) |> 
  pivot_longer(-(1:2),
               names_to = "Feature",
               values_to = "IDs") |> 
  ggplot(aes(x = cond_rep, y = IDs, fill = condition)) +
  geom_col() +
  #scale_fill_observable() +
  facet_wrap(~Feature,
             scales = "free_y") +
  labs(title = "Precursor and protein group identificiations per sample",
       x = "Sample",
       y = "Identifications") +
  theme_bw() + 
  theme(axis.text.x = element_text(angle = 90))
## Warning: 'experiments' dropped; see 'drops()'
## harmonizing input:
##   removing 36 sampleMap rows not in names(experiments)
## `summarise()` has regrouped the output.
## ℹ Summaries were computed grouped by condition and cond_rep.
## ℹ Output is grouped by condition.
## ℹ Use `summarise(.groups = "drop_last")` to silence this message.
## ℹ Use `summarise(.by = c(condition, cond_rep))` for per-operation grouping
##   (`?dplyr::dplyr_by`) instead.

4.4 Dimensionality reduction plot

A common approach for data exploration is to perform dimension reduction, such as Multi Dimensional Scaling (MDS). We will first extract the set to explore along the sample annotations (used for plot colouring).

getWithColData(qf, "proteins") |> 
  as("SingleCellExperiment") |> 
  runMDS(exprs_values = 1) |> 
  plotMDS(colour_by = "condition", shape_by = "rep", point_size = 3) 
## Warning: 'experiments' dropped; see 'drops()'

This plot reveals interesting information. First, we see that the samples are nicely separated according to their spike-in condition. Interestingly, the conditions are sorted by the concentration.

4.5 Correlation matrix

corMat <- qf[["proteins"]] |> 
  assay() |>
  cor(method = "spearman", use = "pairwise.complete.obs") 
 
colnames(corMat) <- qf$sampleId
rownames(corMat) <- qf$sampleId
corMat |> 
  ggcorrplot::ggcorrplot() +
  scale_fill_viridis_c() +
  labs(title = "Correlation matrix",
       fill = "Correlation") +
  theme(axis.text.x = element_text(angle = 90))
## Scale for fill is already present.
## Adding another scale for fill, which will replace the existing scale.

5 Data Modeling (Robust Regression)

5.1 Sources of variation

For this experiment, we can only model a single source of variation: spike-in concentration. All remaining sources of variability, e.g. pipetting errors, MS run to run variability, etc will be lumped in the residual variability (error term).

Spike-in condition effects: we model the source of variation induced by the experimental treatment of interest as a fixed effect, which we consider non-random, i.e. the treatment effect is assumed to be the same in repeated experiments, but it is unknown and has to be estimated.

When modelling a typical label-free experiment at the protein level, the model boils down to the following linear model:

\[ y_i = \mathbf{x}_i^T\boldsymbol{\beta} +\epsilon_i\] with the \(\log_2\)-normalised and summarised protein intensities in sample; \(\mathbf{x}_i\) a vector with the covariate pattern for the sample encoding the intercept, spike-in condition, or other experimental factors;
\(\boldsymbol{\beta}\) the vector of parameters that model the association between the covariates and the outcome; and \(\epsilon_i\) the residuals reflecting variation that is not captured by the fixed effects. Note that allows for a flexible parameterisation of the treatment beyond a single covariate, i.e. including a 1 for the intercept, continuous and categorical variables as well as their interactions. We assume the residuals to be independent and identically distributed (i.i.d) according to a normal distribution with zero mean and constant variance, i.e. \(\epsilon_i \sim N(0, \sigma^2_\epsilon)\), that can differ from protein to protein.

In R, this model is encoded using the following simple formula:

model <- ~ condition

5.2 Model Estimation

We estimate the model with msqrob(). The function takes the QFeatures object, extracts the quantitative values from the "proteins" set generated during summarisation, and fits a simple linear model with condition as covariate, which are automatically retrieved from colData(qf). Note, that msqrob() can also take a SummarizedExperiment of precursor, peptide or protein intensities as its input.

  qf <- msqrob(
    qf,  
    i = "proteins",
    formula = model,
    robust = TRUE)

We enable M-estimation (robust = TRUE) for improved robustness against outliers.

The fitting results are available in the msqrobModels column of the rowData. More specifically, the modelling output is stored in the rowData as a statModel object, one model per row (protein). We will see in a later section how to perform statistical inference on the estimated parameters.

models <- rowData(qf[["proteins"]])[["msqrobModels"]]
models[1:3]
## $D6VTK4
## Object of class "StatModel"
## The type is "rlm"
## There number of elements is 5 
## 
## $O13297
## Object of class "StatModel"
## The type is "rlm"
## There number of elements is 5 
## 
## $O13329
## Object of class "StatModel"
## The type is "rlm"
## There number of elements is 5

5.3 Statistical inference

We can now convert the research question “do the spike-in conditions affect the protein intensities?” into a statistical hypothesis.

In other words, we need to translate this question in a null and alternative hypothesis on a single model parameter or on a linear combination of model parameters, which is also referred to with a contrast.

To aid defining contrasts, we will visualise the experimental design using the ExploreModelMatrix package.

vd <- ExploreModelMatrix::VisualizeDesign(
    sampleData =  colData(qf),
    designFormula = model,
    textSizeFitted = 4
)
vd$plotlist
## [[1]]

This plot shows that the average protein \(\log_2\) intensity for condition2 is modelled by (Intercept), for the condition4 group by (Intercept) + condtion4 and for the condition8 group by (Intercept) + condtion8.

Hence, to assess differential abundance of proteins between spike-in conditions, we will have to assess all pairwise combinations between the spike-in groups, which leads to 3 different contrasts, i.e. the log2 fold change between ratio 4 and ratio 2, \(\log_2 FC_{4-2} = (Intercept + condition4) - Intercept = condition4\), the log2 fold change between ratio 8 and ratio 2, \(\log_2 FC_{8-2} = (Intercept + condition8) - Intercept = condition8\), and the log2 fold change between ratio 8 and ratio 4, \(\log_2 FC_{8-4} = (Intercept + condition8) - (Intercept+condition4) = condition8 - condition4\).

We can generate the null-hypothesess for all pairwise comparisons manually. However, here we will use the createPairwiseContrasts function in msqrob2.

(allHypotheses <- createPairwiseContrasts(
  model, colData(qf), "condition"
  )
)
## Warning: the 'nobars' function has moved to the reformulas package. Please update your imports, or ask an upstream package maintainer to do so.
## This warning is displayed once per session.
## [1] "condition4 = 0"              "condition8 = 0"             
## [3] "condition8 - condition4 = 0"

Based on these null hypothesis we now generate the contrast matrix with all three contrasts using the makeContrast function. Note, that experienced users can also define the contrast matrix, directly.

(L <- makeContrast(
  allHypotheses,
  parameterNames = colnames(vd$designmatrix)
))
##             condition4 condition8 condition8 - condition4
## (Intercept)          0          0                       0
## condition4           1          0                      -1
## condition8           0          1                       1

We can now test our null hypothesis using hypothesisTest() which takes the QFeatures object with the fitted model and the contrast we just built. msqrob2 automatically applies the hypothesis testing to all features in the assay.

qf <- hypothesisTest(qf, i = "proteins", contrast = L)

The results tables for each contrast are stored in the row data of the proteins assay in qf under the colomnames of the contrast matrix L.

qf[["proteins"]] |> 
  rowData() |> 
  names()
##  [1] "Protein.Group"           "Protein.Names"          
##  [3] "Protein.Ids"             "Genes"                  
##  [5] "Lib.PG.Q.Value"          "Proteotypic"            
##  [7] "Decoy"                   "species"                
##  [9] "pepsPerProt"             ".n"                     
## [11] "msqrobModels"            "condition4"             
## [13] "condition8"              "condition8 - condition4"

Users can directly access the results tables via de colData. However, msqrob2 also provides the msqrobCollect function. This function will automatically retrieve the results tables for all contrasts and combine them by default in one table. This table contains two additional columns: contrast with the name of the contrast and feature with the nme of the modelled feature, here protein group.

inferences <- 
  msqrobCollect(qf[["proteins"]], L) 
head(inferences)
##                         logFC         se       df          t       pval
## condition4.D6VTK4 -0.27045979 0.13185841 7.560838 -2.0511380 0.07641608
## condition4.O13297  0.05464939 0.07948963 7.620863  0.6875034 0.51214122
## condition4.O13329  0.18325945 0.15888252 4.634229  1.1534274 0.30473223
## condition4.O13539  0.02317347 0.18032985 8.505706  0.1285060 0.90073544
## condition4.O13563  0.15757269 0.13513144 8.581991  1.1660698 0.27496810
## condition4.O13585 -0.09970767 0.14552880 7.289842 -0.6851405 0.51444450
##                     adjPval   contrast feature
## condition4.D6VTK4 0.8977611 condition4  D6VTK4
## condition4.O13297 0.9971488 condition4  O13297
## condition4.O13329 0.9971488 condition4  O13329
## condition4.O13539 0.9971488 condition4  O13539
## condition4.O13563 0.9971488 condition4  O13563
## condition4.O13585 0.9971488 condition4  O13585

Note, that missing values can occur because data modelling resulted in a fitError. We refer users to our section 2.9 of our msqrob2 book where we elaborate on how to deal with proteins that could not be fit.

The results also include an adjusted p-value for each protein to correct for multiple testing using the Benjamini-Hochberg False Discovery Rate (FDR) method, which represents an estimate of the minimum FDR at which the test result for protein is considered significant, i.e. the expected fraction of false positives that are reported in the shortest top list of the most significant proteins that include protein \(j\).

Note, that for this design we exceptionally also know the ground truth. So we will also add this information to the inference table:

inferences <- inferences |> 
    mutate(species =  rep(rowData(qf[["proteins"]])$species, ncol(L)))

5.3.1 Results tables for significant proteins

We will return tables of proteins for which the contrasts are significant at the 5% FDR level.

  1. We set the significance level
  2. We loop over the contrasts
  3. We filter the significant results for the contrast from the table
  4. We print the table
alpha <- 0.05 #1.
for (contrasti in colnames(L)) #2. 
{
  sigList <- inferences |> 
    filter(contrast == contrasti & adjPval < alpha) #3.
  cat("**Contrast:**", contrasti, "= 0 (", nrow(sigList), " significant proteins)\n\n") #4.
  print(kable(sigList) |>
      kable_styling(full_width = FALSE) |>
      scroll_box(height = "250px")
      ) #4.
  cat("\n\n\n---\n\n") #4.
}

Contrast: condition4 = 0 ( 24 significant proteins)

logFC se df t pval adjPval contrast feature species
condition4.UPS&#124;O76070ups&#124;SYUG_HUMAN_UPS 1.1688286 0.1067814 7.822585 10.945992 0.0000051 0.0017685 condition4 UPS&#124;O76070ups&#124;SYUG_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition4.UPS&#124;P00167ups&#124;CYB5_HUMAN_UPS 0.9550911 0.1600412 8.489309 5.967784 0.0002656 0.0343955 condition4 UPS&#124;P00167ups&#124;CYB5_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition4.UPS&#124;P00915ups&#124;CAH1_HUMAN_UPS 0.8576361 0.0824126 7.256450 10.406617 0.0000128 0.0031874 condition4 UPS&#124;P00915ups&#124;CAH1_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition4.UPS&#124;P00918ups&#124;CAH2_HUMAN_UPS 0.8983091 0.0817491 8.634229 10.988613 0.0000023 0.0011811 condition4 UPS&#124;P00918ups&#124;CAH2_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition4.UPS&#124;P01008ups&#124;ANT3_HUMAN_UPS 0.8983310 0.0714148 7.189268 12.579052 0.0000037 0.0016515 condition4 UPS&#124;P01008ups&#124;ANT3_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition4.UPS&#124;P01031ups&#124;CO5_HUMAN_UPS 0.9394264 0.1521149 8.256994 6.175770 0.0002340 0.0330532 condition4 UPS&#124;P01031ups&#124;CO5_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition4.UPS&#124;P02144ups&#124;MYG_HUMAN_UPS 0.9151465 0.0980487 8.073330 9.333587 0.0000133 0.0031874 condition4 UPS&#124;P02144ups&#124;MYG_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition4.UPS&#124;P02753ups&#124;RETBP_HUMAN_UPS 1.0894906 0.1129798 8.511909 9.643231 0.0000072 0.0021366 condition4 UPS&#124;P02753ups&#124;RETBP_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition4.UPS&#124;P02768ups&#124;ALBU_HUMAN_UPS 0.9545618 0.0707104 8.555250 13.499601 0.0000005 0.0004774 condition4 UPS&#124;P02768ups&#124;ALBU_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition4.UPS&#124;P04040ups&#124;CATA_HUMAN_UPS 0.8971884 0.0927431 7.670533 9.673908 0.0000145 0.0032173 condition4 UPS&#124;P04040ups&#124;CATA_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition4.UPS&#124;P06732ups&#124;KCRM_HUMAN_UPS 1.0574878 0.0724997 7.498220 14.586095 0.0000009 0.0005571 condition4 UPS&#124;P06732ups&#124;KCRM_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition4.UPS&#124;P08263ups&#124;GSTA1_HUMAN_UPS 0.8494670 0.1182945 7.660080 7.180952 0.0001167 0.0190923 condition4 UPS&#124;P08263ups&#124;GSTA1_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition4.UPS&#124;P12081ups&#124;SYHC_HUMAN_UPS 0.9807771 0.0899123 7.961163 10.908158 0.0000046 0.0017685 condition4 UPS&#124;P12081ups&#124;SYHC_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition4.UPS&#124;P15559ups&#124;NQO1_HUMAN_UPS 0.9585884 0.0991542 8.431726 9.667650 0.0000076 0.0021366 condition4 UPS&#124;P15559ups&#124;NQO1_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition4.UPS&#124;P41159ups&#124;LEP_HUMAN_UPS 1.0437776 0.1540155 8.219999 6.777094 0.0001244 0.0193306 condition4 UPS&#124;P41159ups&#124;LEP_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition4.UPS&#124;P55957ups&#124;BID_HUMAN_UPS 1.3946452 0.2030001 7.634229 6.870168 0.0001597 0.0236380 condition4 UPS&#124;P55957ups&#124;BID_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition4.UPS&#124;P62937ups&#124;PPIA_HUMAN_UPS 0.9706806 0.0723174 8.621128 13.422498 0.0000004 0.0004774 condition4 UPS&#124;P62937ups&#124;PPIA_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition4.UPS&#124;P62988ups&#124;UBIQ_HUMAN_UPS 0.8146918 0.0998367 8.520830 8.160242 0.0000262 0.0054243 condition4 UPS&#124;P62988ups&#124;UBIQ_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition4.UPS&#124;P63165ups&#124;SUMO1_HUMAN_UPS 1.0093601 0.0662283 8.266709 15.240620 0.0000002 0.0004774 condition4 UPS&#124;P63165ups&#124;SUMO1_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition4.UPS&#124;P63279ups&#124;UBC9_HUMAN_UPS 0.9538438 0.1230115 8.227903 7.754101 0.0000468 0.0085640 condition4 UPS&#124;P63279ups&#124;UBC9_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition4.UPS&#124;P68871ups&#124;HBB_HUMAN_UPS 0.8756257 0.1181265 8.546292 7.412611 0.0000533 0.0092058 condition4 UPS&#124;P68871ups&#124;HBB_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition4.UPS&#124;P69905ups&#124;HBA_HUMAN_UPS 0.9088946 0.1135603 8.618881 8.003633 0.0000284 0.0055175 condition4 UPS&#124;P69905ups&#124;HBA_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition4.UPS&#124;Q06830ups&#124;PRDX1_HUMAN_UPS 0.8637362 0.0698900 8.634229 12.358512 0.0000009 0.0005571 condition4 UPS&#124;Q06830ups&#124;PRDX1_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition4.UPS&#124;Q15843ups&#124;NEDD8_HUMAN_UPS 1.0796467 0.1718163 7.814438 6.283727 0.0002613 0.0343955 condition4 UPS&#124;Q15843ups&#124;NEDD8_HUMAN_UPS ups

Contrast: condition8 = 0 ( 30 significant proteins)

logFC se df t pval adjPval contrast feature species
condition8.P12687 0.8703198 0.1396314 8.634229 6.232982 0.0001820 0.0194927 condition8 P12687 yeast
condition8.P40547 0.8061507 0.1171118 8.617958 6.883597 0.0000888 0.0102156 condition8 P40547 yeast
condition8.Q99325 -0.9917794 0.1605899 7.817782 -6.175852 0.0002926 0.0302932 condition8 Q99325 yeast
condition8.UPS&#124;O76070ups&#124;SYUG_HUMAN_UPS 2.4486204 0.1018090 7.822585 24.051118 0.0000000 0.0000050 condition8 UPS&#124;O76070ups&#124;SYUG_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition8.UPS&#124;P00167ups&#124;CYB5_HUMAN_UPS 2.1401353 0.1591407 8.489309 13.448074 0.0000005 0.0000775 condition8 UPS&#124;P00167ups&#124;CYB5_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition8.UPS&#124;P00915ups&#124;CAH1_HUMAN_UPS 2.0504959 0.0910654 7.256450 22.516729 0.0000001 0.0000108 condition8 UPS&#124;P00915ups&#124;CAH1_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition8.UPS&#124;P00918ups&#124;CAH2_HUMAN_UPS 2.0513638 0.0817491 8.634229 25.093416 0.0000000 0.0000014 condition8 UPS&#124;P00918ups&#124;CAH2_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition8.UPS&#124;P01008ups&#124;ANT3_HUMAN_UPS 2.0560943 0.0788311 7.189268 26.082271 0.0000000 0.0000062 condition8 UPS&#124;P01008ups&#124;ANT3_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition8.UPS&#124;P01031ups&#124;CO5_HUMAN_UPS 1.8633810 0.1536206 8.256994 12.129759 0.0000015 0.0001949 condition8 UPS&#124;P01031ups&#124;CO5_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition8.UPS&#124;P02144ups&#124;MYG_HUMAN_UPS 2.0203635 0.1035323 8.073330 19.514337 0.0000000 0.0000092 condition8 UPS&#124;P02144ups&#124;MYG_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition8.UPS&#124;P02753ups&#124;RETBP_HUMAN_UPS 2.0920932 0.1117980 8.511909 18.713148 0.0000000 0.0000078 condition8 UPS&#124;P02753ups&#124;RETBP_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition8.UPS&#124;P02768ups&#124;ALBU_HUMAN_UPS 2.0923907 0.0711867 8.555250 29.392983 0.0000000 0.0000006 condition8 UPS&#124;P02768ups&#124;ALBU_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition8.UPS&#124;P04040ups&#124;CATA_HUMAN_UPS 2.0944595 0.0884488 7.670533 23.679911 0.0000000 0.0000062 condition8 UPS&#124;P04040ups&#124;CATA_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition8.UPS&#124;P06732ups&#124;KCRM_HUMAN_UPS 2.1478951 0.0736127 7.498220 29.178307 0.0000000 0.0000028 condition8 UPS&#124;P06732ups&#124;KCRM_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition8.UPS&#124;P08263ups&#124;GSTA1_HUMAN_UPS 1.9401553 0.1173190 7.660080 16.537440 0.0000003 0.0000469 condition8 UPS&#124;P08263ups&#124;GSTA1_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition8.UPS&#124;P10599ups&#124;THIO_HUMAN_UPS 2.0933915 0.2825016 7.631264 7.410193 0.0000961 0.0106607 condition8 UPS&#124;P10599ups&#124;THIO_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition8.UPS&#124;P12081ups&#124;SYHC_HUMAN_UPS 2.0926925 0.0890061 7.961163 23.511789 0.0000000 0.0000050 condition8 UPS&#124;P12081ups&#124;SYHC_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition8.UPS&#124;P15559ups&#124;NQO1_HUMAN_UPS 1.9550501 0.0974071 8.431726 20.070911 0.0000000 0.0000062 condition8 UPS&#124;P15559ups&#124;NQO1_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition8.UPS&#124;P16083ups&#124;NQO2_HUMAN_UPS 2.1475284 0.2061866 8.361276 10.415459 0.0000045 0.0005583 condition8 UPS&#124;P16083ups&#124;NQO2_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition8.UPS&#124;P41159ups&#124;LEP_HUMAN_UPS 1.8613224 0.1481948 8.219999 12.559974 0.0000012 0.0001617 condition8 UPS&#124;P41159ups&#124;LEP_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition8.UPS&#124;P55957ups&#124;BID_HUMAN_UPS 2.7816594 0.2030001 7.634229 13.702746 0.0000012 0.0001617 condition8 UPS&#124;P55957ups&#124;BID_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition8.UPS&#124;P61626ups&#124;LYSC_HUMAN_UPS 2.0245577 0.1868859 7.270806 10.833124 0.0000096 0.0011415 condition8 UPS&#124;P61626ups&#124;LYSC_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition8.UPS&#124;P62937ups&#124;PPIA_HUMAN_UPS 2.1495667 0.0722383 8.621128 29.756622 0.0000000 0.0000006 condition8 UPS&#124;P62937ups&#124;PPIA_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition8.UPS&#124;P62988ups&#124;UBIQ_HUMAN_UPS 1.8965209 0.0998367 8.520830 18.996225 0.0000000 0.0000074 condition8 UPS&#124;P62988ups&#124;UBIQ_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition8.UPS&#124;P63165ups&#124;SUMO1_HUMAN_UPS 2.0689042 0.0662283 8.266709 31.238982 0.0000000 0.0000006 condition8 UPS&#124;P63165ups&#124;SUMO1_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition8.UPS&#124;P63279ups&#124;UBC9_HUMAN_UPS 2.2002153 0.1203024 8.227903 18.289033 0.0000001 0.0000108 condition8 UPS&#124;P63279ups&#124;UBC9_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition8.UPS&#124;P68871ups&#124;HBB_HUMAN_UPS 2.0471710 0.1190149 8.546292 17.200961 0.0000001 0.0000108 condition8 UPS&#124;P68871ups&#124;HBB_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition8.UPS&#124;P69905ups&#124;HBA_HUMAN_UPS 2.0617557 0.1135603 8.618881 18.155609 0.0000000 0.0000080 condition8 UPS&#124;P69905ups&#124;HBA_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition8.UPS&#124;Q06830ups&#124;PRDX1_HUMAN_UPS 2.0010121 0.0698900 8.634229 28.630886 0.0000000 0.0000006 condition8 UPS&#124;Q06830ups&#124;PRDX1_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition8.UPS&#124;Q15843ups&#124;NEDD8_HUMAN_UPS 2.3419997 0.1576358 7.814438 14.857033 0.0000005 0.0000775 condition8 UPS&#124;Q15843ups&#124;NEDD8_HUMAN_UPS ups

Contrast: condition8 - condition4 = 0 ( 27 significant proteins)

logFC se df t pval adjPval contrast feature species
condition8 - condition4.P47150 0.7047037 0.0922144 5.634229 7.642010 0.0003534 0.0406570 condition8 - condition4 P47150 yeast
condition8 - condition4.Q05521 -0.7327455 0.1026483 8.181034 -7.138406 0.0000879 0.0121999 condition8 - condition4 Q05521 yeast
condition8 - condition4.Q99325 -0.9935997 0.1632031 7.817782 -6.088118 0.0003216 0.0395417 condition8 - condition4 Q99325 yeast
condition8 - condition4.UPS&#124;O76070ups&#124;SYUG_HUMAN_UPS 1.2797917 0.1042936 7.822585 12.271046 0.0000022 0.0006183 condition8 - condition4 UPS&#124;O76070ups&#124;SYUG_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition8 - condition4.UPS&#124;P00167ups&#124;CYB5_HUMAN_UPS 1.1850442 0.1590028 8.489309 7.452979 0.0000530 0.0082364 condition8 - condition4 UPS&#124;P00167ups&#124;CYB5_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition8 - condition4.UPS&#124;P00915ups&#124;CAH1_HUMAN_UPS 1.1928598 0.0882951 7.256450 13.509923 0.0000021 0.0006183 condition8 - condition4 UPS&#124;P00915ups&#124;CAH1_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition8 - condition4.UPS&#124;P00918ups&#124;CAH2_HUMAN_UPS 1.1530547 0.0817491 8.634229 14.104803 0.0000003 0.0001821 condition8 - condition4 UPS&#124;P00918ups&#124;CAH2_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition8 - condition4.UPS&#124;P01008ups&#124;ANT3_HUMAN_UPS 1.1577634 0.0760012 7.189268 15.233486 0.0000010 0.0004357 condition8 - condition4 UPS&#124;P01008ups&#124;ANT3_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition8 - condition4.UPS&#124;P01031ups&#124;CO5_HUMAN_UPS 0.9239546 0.1553443 8.256994 5.947787 0.0003031 0.0392293 condition8 - condition4 UPS&#124;P01031ups&#124;CO5_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition8 - condition4.UPS&#124;P02144ups&#124;MYG_HUMAN_UPS 1.1052170 0.1035323 8.073330 10.675097 0.0000049 0.0010765 condition8 - condition4 UPS&#124;P02144ups&#124;MYG_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition8 - condition4.UPS&#124;P02753ups&#124;RETBP_HUMAN_UPS 1.0026026 0.1129798 8.511909 8.874173 0.0000138 0.0022575 condition8 - condition4 UPS&#124;P02753ups&#124;RETBP_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition8 - condition4.UPS&#124;P02768ups&#124;ALBU_HUMAN_UPS 1.1378289 0.0711867 8.555250 15.983719 0.0000001 0.0000975 condition8 - condition4 UPS&#124;P02768ups&#124;ALBU_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition8 - condition4.UPS&#124;P04040ups&#124;CATA_HUMAN_UPS 1.1972711 0.0894148 7.670533 13.390082 0.0000014 0.0004691 condition8 - condition4 UPS&#124;P04040ups&#124;CATA_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition8 - condition4.UPS&#124;P06732ups&#124;KCRM_HUMAN_UPS 1.0904074 0.0667896 7.498220 16.326006 0.0000004 0.0002039 condition8 - condition4 UPS&#124;P06732ups&#124;KCRM_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition8 - condition4.UPS&#124;P08263ups&#124;GSTA1_HUMAN_UPS 1.0906883 0.1081452 7.660080 10.085411 0.0000109 0.0018731 condition8 - condition4 UPS&#124;P08263ups&#124;GSTA1_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition8 - condition4.UPS&#124;P12081ups&#124;SYHC_HUMAN_UPS 1.1119153 0.0854195 7.961163 13.017109 0.0000012 0.0004668 condition8 - condition4 UPS&#124;P12081ups&#124;SYHC_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition8 - condition4.UPS&#124;P15559ups&#124;NQO1_HUMAN_UPS 0.9964617 0.0991542 8.431726 10.049614 0.0000056 0.0010886 condition8 - condition4 UPS&#124;P15559ups&#124;NQO1_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition8 - condition4.UPS&#124;P16083ups&#124;NQO2_HUMAN_UPS 1.1912520 0.2043093 8.361276 5.830629 0.0003310 0.0395417 condition8 - condition4 UPS&#124;P16083ups&#124;NQO2_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition8 - condition4.UPS&#124;P55957ups&#124;BID_HUMAN_UPS 1.3870142 0.1815689 7.634229 7.639053 0.0000779 0.0115288 condition8 - condition4 UPS&#124;P55957ups&#124;BID_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition8 - condition4.UPS&#124;P62937ups&#124;PPIA_HUMAN_UPS 1.1788861 0.0723174 8.621128 16.301549 0.0000001 0.0000975 condition8 - condition4 UPS&#124;P62937ups&#124;PPIA_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition8 - condition4.UPS&#124;P62988ups&#124;UBIQ_HUMAN_UPS 1.0818290 0.0988704 8.520830 10.941887 0.0000026 0.0006794 condition8 - condition4 UPS&#124;P62988ups&#124;UBIQ_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition8 - condition4.UPS&#124;P63165ups&#124;SUMO1_HUMAN_UPS 1.0595440 0.0640311 8.266709 16.547325 0.0000001 0.0000975 condition8 - condition4 UPS&#124;P63165ups&#124;SUMO1_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition8 - condition4.UPS&#124;P63279ups&#124;UBC9_HUMAN_UPS 1.2463715 0.1214954 8.227903 10.258593 0.0000057 0.0010886 condition8 - condition4 UPS&#124;P63279ups&#124;UBC9_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition8 - condition4.UPS&#124;P68871ups&#124;HBB_HUMAN_UPS 1.1715453 0.1190149 8.546292 9.843685 0.0000060 0.0010886 condition8 - condition4 UPS&#124;P68871ups&#124;HBB_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition8 - condition4.UPS&#124;P69905ups&#124;HBA_HUMAN_UPS 1.1528610 0.1134146 8.618881 10.165019 0.0000043 0.0010354 condition8 - condition4 UPS&#124;P69905ups&#124;HBA_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition8 - condition4.UPS&#124;Q06830ups&#124;PRDX1_HUMAN_UPS 1.1372759 0.0698900 8.634229 16.272374 0.0000001 0.0000975 condition8 - condition4 UPS&#124;Q06830ups&#124;PRDX1_HUMAN_UPS ups
condition8 - condition4.UPS&#124;Q15843ups&#124;NEDD8_HUMAN_UPS 1.2623530 0.1718163 7.814438 7.347109 0.0000903 0.0121999 condition8 - condition4 UPS&#124;Q15843ups&#124;NEDD8_HUMAN_UPS ups

5.3.2 Volcanoplots

A volcano plot is a common visualisation that provides an overview of the hypothesis testing results, plotting the \(-\log_{10}\) p-value1 Note, that upon this transformation a value of 1 represents a p-value of 0.1, 2 a p-value of 0.01, 3 a p-value of 0.001, etc. as a function of the estimated log fold change. Volcano plots can be used to highlight the most interesting proteins that have large fold changes and/or are highly significant. We can use the table above directly to build a volcano plot using ggplot2 functionality. We also highlight which proteins are UPS standards, known to be differentially abundant by experimental design.

Experienced users can make the plot themselves. However, in msqrob2 we also provide the plotVolcano function that generates volcanoplots based on msqrob2 inference tables generated with the hypothesisTest function.

Since the inference table contains multiple contrast we use the facet_wrap function to make a separate volcano plot for each contrast.

volcanoplots <- inferences |> 
  plotVolcano() +
  facet_wrap(~contrast)
volcanoplots

5.3.3 Heatmaps

We construct heatmaps for the significant proteins for each contrast.

  1. We will loop over the column names of the contrast matrix L with a user-defined function that extracts
  2. the names of the significant features for a contrast
  3. the quant data for the significant proteins and scale it
  4. annotation,
  5. and returns the heatmap using the quants data. We do not cluster columns (samples) to keep them together according to the design.
  6. We feed the function with the assay proteins along with its colData and
  7. the significance level alpha
heatmaps <- lapply(
  colnames(L), #1.
  function(contrast, se, alpha)
    {
    sig <- rowData(se)[[contrast]] |> #2.
      filter(adjPval < alpha) |> 
      rownames()
    
    quants <- t(scale(t(assay(se[sig,])))) #3
    
    colnames(quants) <- paste0("con", se$condition,"_rep",se$rep) #4.
    annotations <- columnAnnotation(condition = se$condition) #4.
    set.seed(1234) ## annotation colours are randomly generated by default
    return( #.5
                       Heatmap(
                       quants, 
                       name = "log2 intensity",
                       top_annotation = annotations, 
                       column_title = paste0(contrast, " = 0")
                       )
                     )
                   },
                   se = getWithColData(qf, "proteins"), #6.
                   alpha = alpha) #7.
## Warning: 'experiments' dropped; see 'drops()'
heatmaps
## [[1]]

## 
## [[2]]

## 
## [[3]]

A typical workflow for the analysis of a proteomics experiment will end.

6 Assess performance

Note, that the evaluations in this section are typically not possible on real experimental data. Indeed, we are using a spike-in dataset so we know the ground truth: all human UPS proteins are differentially abundant (DA) between the conditions and the yeast proteins are non-DA.

We use a nominal FDR level of 0.05

alpha <- 0.05

6.1 Real Fold changes

As this is a spike-in study with known ground truth, we can also plot the log2 fold change distributions against the expected values, in this case 0 for the yeast proteins and the difference of the log concentration for the spiked-in UPS standards. We first create a small table with the real values.

  1. We extract the levels from factor condition
  2. We convert then into a number as they refer to the real ratio
  3. We log2-transform them
  4. We calculate all pairwise differences between log2 transformed ratio’s to obtain the log2 fold changes

We use a similar operation to construct the name of the corresponding contrast.

(realLogFC <- data.frame(
    logFC = colData(qf)$condition |> 
        levels() |> # 1. 
        as.double() |> # 2. 
        log2() |> # 3. 
        combn(m=2, FUN = diff), #4.
    contrast = colData(qf)$condition |> 
        levels() |> 
        combn(m=2, FUN= function(x) paste0(x[2]," - ",x[1])) |>
        recode("4 - 2" = "condition4", 
               "8 - 2" = "condition8",
               "8 - 4" = "condition8 - condition4")
    )
)
##   logFC                contrast
## 1     1              condition4
## 2     2              condition8
## 3     1 condition8 - condition4

We now evaluate if the estimated fold changes correspond to the real fold changes.

  1. We plot the log fold changes in function of the spikein condition and color according to spikein condition.
  2. We add a boxplot layer.
  3. We use custom colors.
  4. We add a horizontal line at 0, which corresponds to the known log2 fold change for yeast proteins
  5. We add a horizontal lines for known log2 fold changes of the spiked UPS proteins.
logFC <- inferences |> 
  filter(!is.na(logFC)) |>
  ggplot(aes(x = species, y = logFC, color= species)) + #1.
  geom_boxplot() + #2.
  theme_bw() + 
  scale_color_manual( 
    values = c("grey20", "firebrick"), #3. 
    name = "",
    labels = c("yeast", "ups")
    ) + 
  geom_hline(yintercept = 0, color="grey20") + # 4. 
  facet_wrap(~contrast) +
  geom_hline(aes(yintercept = logFC), color="firebrick", data=realLogFC) #5. 
logFC

6.2 True and false positives

All human UPS proteins are differentially abundant (DA) between the conditions and the yeast proteins are non-DA.

tpFpTable <- group_by(inferences, contrast) |>
    filter(adjPval < alpha) |>
    summarise("TP" = sum(species == "ups"),
              "FP" = sum(species != "ups"),
              "FDP" = mean(species != "ups")) 
tpFpTable
## # A tibble: 3 × 4
##   contrast                   TP    FP   FDP
##   <chr>                   <int> <int> <dbl>
## 1 condition4                 24     0 0    
## 2 condition8                 27     3 0.1  
## 3 condition8 - condition4    24     3 0.111

6.3 TPR - FDP curves

We generate the TPR-FDP curves to assess the performance to prioritise differentially abundant proteins. Again, these curves are built using the ground truth information about which proteins are differentially abundant (spiked in) and which proteins are constant across samples. We create two functions to compute the TPR and the FDP.

computeFDP <- function(pval, tp) {
    ord <- order(pval)
    fdp <- cumsum(!tp[ord]) / 1:length(tp)
    fdp[order(ord)]
}
computeTPR <- function(pval, tp, nTP = NULL) {
    if (is.null(nTP)) nTP <- sum(tp)
    ord <- order(pval)
    tpr <- cumsum(tp[ord]) / nTP
    tpr[order(ord)]
}

We apply these functions and compute the corresponding metric using the statistical inference results and the ground truth information.

performance <- inferences |> group_by(contrast) |> 
    na.exclude() |>
    mutate(tpr = computeTPR(pval, species == "ups"),
           fdp = computeFDP(pval, species == "ups")) |>
    arrange(fdp)

We also highlight the observed FDP at a \(alpha = 5\%\) FDR threshold.

workPoints <- performance |> 
  group_by(contrast) |>
    filter(adjPval < 0.05) |>
    slice_max(pval)
ggplot(performance) +
    aes(
        y = fdp,
        x = tpr,
    ) +
    geom_line() +
    geom_point(data = workPoints, size = 3) +
    geom_hline(yintercept = 0.05, linetype = 2) +
    facet_wrap( ~ contrast) +
    coord_flip(ylim = c(0, 0.2)) +
    theme_minimal()

6.4 Volcano-plots

We make a separate plot per contrast and compare the volcano plots for all normalisation x summarisation combinations.

  inferences |> 
  plotVolcano() + 
  facet_wrap(~contrast) +
  aes(color = species, shape = adjPval < alpha) + 
    scale_color_manual(
      values = c("grey20", "firebrick"), 
      name = "species",
      labels = c("yeast", "ups")
      ) +
  labs(shape="FDR < 0.05") +
  geom_vline(aes(xintercept = logFC), data = realLogFC , col ="firebrick") +
  geom_hline(aes(yintercept = -log10(adjAlpha)), data = inferences |> 
               group_by(contrast) |> 
               summarize(adjAlpha = alpha *mean(adjPval < alpha, na.rm=TRUE), .groups="drop"))
## Scale for colour is already present.
## Adding another scale for colour, which will replace the existing scale.

7 References

Staes, An, Teresa Mendes Maia, Sara Dufour, Robbin Bouwmeester, Ralf Gabriels, Lennart Martens, Kris Gevaert, Francis Impens, and Simon Devos. 2024. “Benefit of in Silico Predicted Spectral Libraries in Data‑Independent Acquisition Data Analysis Workflows.” Journal of Proteome Research 23 (6): 2078–89. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jproteome.4c00048.

Appendix

Note, that more examples can be found in our msqrob2 book.

sessionInfo()
## R version 4.6.0 alpha (2026-04-05 r89794)
## Platform: x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
## Running under: Ubuntu 24.04.4 LTS
## 
## Matrix products: default
## BLAS:   /home/biocbuild/bbs-3.23-bioc/R/lib/libRblas.so 
## LAPACK: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/lapack/liblapack.so.3.12.0  LAPACK version 3.12.0
## 
## locale:
##  [1] LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8       LC_NUMERIC=C              
##  [3] LC_TIME=en_GB              LC_COLLATE=C              
##  [5] LC_MONETARY=en_US.UTF-8    LC_MESSAGES=en_US.UTF-8   
##  [7] LC_PAPER=en_US.UTF-8       LC_NAME=C                 
##  [9] LC_ADDRESS=C               LC_TELEPHONE=C            
## [11] LC_MEASUREMENT=en_US.UTF-8 LC_IDENTIFICATION=C       
## 
## time zone: America/New_York
## tzcode source: system (glibc)
## 
## attached base packages:
## [1] grid      stats4    stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets 
## [8] methods   base     
## 
## other attached packages:
##  [1] scater_1.39.4               scuttle_1.21.6             
##  [3] SingleCellExperiment_1.33.2 ComplexHeatmap_2.27.1      
##  [5] kableExtra_1.4.0            ExploreModelMatrix_1.23.1  
##  [7] stringr_1.6.0               msqrob2_1.19.1             
##  [9] ggplot2_4.0.2               tidyr_1.3.2                
## [11] dplyr_1.2.1                 QFeatures_1.21.2           
## [13] MultiAssayExperiment_1.37.4 SummarizedExperiment_1.41.1
## [15] Biobase_2.71.0              GenomicRanges_1.63.2       
## [17] Seqinfo_1.1.0               IRanges_2.45.0             
## [19] S4Vectors_0.49.1            BiocGenerics_0.57.0        
## [21] generics_0.1.4              MatrixGenerics_1.23.0      
## [23] matrixStats_1.5.0           BiocStyle_2.39.0           
## 
## loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
##   [1] RColorBrewer_1.1-3      rstudioapi_0.18.0       jsonlite_2.0.0         
##   [4] shape_1.4.6.1           magrittr_2.0.5          magick_2.9.1           
##   [7] ggbeeswarm_0.7.3        farver_2.1.2            nloptr_2.2.1           
##  [10] rmarkdown_2.31          GlobalOptions_0.1.4     vctrs_0.7.3            
##  [13] Cairo_1.7-0             minqa_1.2.8             tinytex_0.59           
##  [16] BiocBaseUtils_1.13.0    htmltools_0.5.9         S4Arrays_1.11.1        
##  [19] BiocNeighbors_2.5.4     SparseArray_1.11.13     sass_0.4.10            
##  [22] bslib_0.10.0            htmlwidgets_1.6.4       plyr_1.8.9             
##  [25] cachem_1.1.0            igraph_2.2.3            mime_0.13              
##  [28] lifecycle_1.0.5         iterators_1.0.14        pkgconfig_2.0.3        
##  [31] rsvd_1.0.5              Matrix_1.7-5            R6_2.6.1               
##  [34] fastmap_1.2.0           rbibutils_2.4.1         shiny_1.13.0           
##  [37] clue_0.3-68             digest_0.6.39           colorspace_2.1-2       
##  [40] irlba_2.3.7             textshaping_1.0.5       beachmat_2.27.5        
##  [43] labeling_0.4.3          abind_1.4-8             compiler_4.6.0         
##  [46] bit64_4.6.0-1           withr_3.0.2             doParallel_1.0.17      
##  [49] S7_0.2.1                ggcorrplot_0.1.4.1      BiocParallel_1.45.0    
##  [52] viridis_0.6.5           iq_2.0.1                MASS_7.3-65            
##  [55] DelayedArray_0.37.1     rjson_0.2.23            tools_4.6.0            
##  [58] vipor_0.4.7             otel_0.2.0              beeswarm_0.4.0         
##  [61] httpuv_1.6.17           glue_1.8.0              nlme_3.1-169           
##  [64] promises_1.5.0          cluster_2.1.8.2         reshape2_1.4.5         
##  [67] gtable_0.3.6            data.table_1.18.2.1     utf8_1.2.6             
##  [70] BiocSingular_1.27.1     ScaledMatrix_1.19.0     xml2_1.5.2             
##  [73] XVector_0.51.0          ggrepel_0.9.8           foreach_1.5.2          
##  [76] pillar_1.11.1           limma_3.67.1            later_1.4.8            
##  [79] rintrojs_0.3.4          circlize_0.4.18         splines_4.6.0          
##  [82] lattice_0.22-9          bit_4.6.0               tidyselect_1.2.1       
##  [85] knitr_1.51              gridExtra_2.3           reformulas_0.4.4       
##  [88] bookdown_0.46           ProtGenerics_1.43.0     svglite_2.2.2          
##  [91] xfun_0.57               shinydashboard_0.7.3    statmod_1.5.1          
##  [94] DT_0.34.0               stringi_1.8.7           lazyeval_0.2.3         
##  [97] yaml_2.3.12             boot_1.3-32             evaluate_1.0.5         
## [100] codetools_0.2-20        MsCoreUtils_1.23.9      tibble_3.3.1           
## [103] BiocManager_1.30.27     cli_3.6.6               arrow_23.0.1.2         
## [106] xtable_1.8-8            systemfonts_1.3.2       Rdpack_2.6.6           
## [109] jquerylib_0.1.4         dichromat_2.0-0.1       Rcpp_1.1.1             
## [112] png_0.1-9               parallel_4.6.0          assertthat_0.2.1       
## [115] AnnotationFilter_1.35.0 lme4_2.0-1              viridisLite_0.4.3      
## [118] scales_1.4.0            purrr_1.2.2             crayon_1.5.3           
## [121] GetoptLong_1.1.1        rlang_1.2.0             cowplot_1.2.0          
## [124] shinyjs_2.1.1