MG-RAST, an open-source web application server, facilitates automatic phylogenetic and functional analysis of metagenomes.
Computational resources are currently sourced from the DOE Magellan cloud at Argonne National Laboratory, Amazon EC2 Web services, and various traditional clusters.
MG-RAST was developed to serve as a free, public resource dedicated to the analysis and storage of metagenome sequence data.
It addresses a key bottleneck in metagenome analysis by eliminating the dependence on high-performance computing for annotating data.
The significance of MG-RAST becomes evident in metagenomic and metatranscriptomic studies, where the processing of large datasets often requires computationally intensive analyses.
For example, a recent University of Maryland study estimated a cost exceeding $5 million per terabase using their CLOVR metagenome analysis pipeline.
[1] The MG-RAST application provides a comprehensive suite of services, including automated quality control, annotation, comparative analysis, and archiving for metagenomic and amplicon sequences.
It identifies and removes reads that exhibit matches close to the genomes of model organisms, including fly, mouse, cow, and human.
For the identification of ribosomal RNA sequences, MG-RAST initiates a BLAT search against a reduced version of the SILVA database.
This step allows the system to pinpoint and categorize ribosomal RNA sequences within the dataset, contributing to a more detailed understanding of the biological composition of the analyzed metagenomes or metatranscriptomes.