Metagenomic biomarker discovery and explanation

Nicola Segata, Jacques Izard, Levi Waldron, Dirk Gevers, Larisa Miropolsky, Wendy S. Garrett, Curtis Huttenhower · Genome biology · 2011 · biology · 10.1186/gb-2011-12-6-r60 · record segata2011-metagenomic-biomarker-discovery-an
tag layer · index · concepts · authors · עברית
Where this record's text came from. 2026-08-20 and 2026-08-25 schema-0.3 passes: every quote verified as an exact substring of the staged text and anchored at merge time; concept terms verified present; every edge endpoint an existing node.
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Other fields define these differently the same word, defined another way in another discipline
false positive rate 3 fields · statistical significance 2 fields

Tags on this paper

Every tag the record carries, each linking to every other paper in the corpus that carries it. A tag appears here whether or not its words occur in the article — the spans below are only the ones a sentence in this paper licenses. Of the 16 concept tags on this paper, all 16 are grounded in a quoted sentence.
class comparison class discovery class prediction LEfSe effect size biological consistency effect relevance statistical significance biomarkers false positive rate false negative rate P-value inter-subject variability Wilcoxon rank-sum test prior biological knowledge high-dimensional data THREE TESTS IN SEQUENCE, EACH ASKING A DIFFERENT QUESTION: a Kruskal-Wallis rank test for whether the feature differs at all, pairwise Wilcoxon tests among SUBCLASSES for whether the difference is consistent with the population structure, and LDA for how big it is EXPLAINING RATHER THAN DETECTING: the method keeps features able to explain the difference between conditions, not merely those with uneven distributions - which is what a significance test alone returns PRIOR KNOWLEDGE AS A CONSTRAINT ON A HIGH-DIMENSIONAL SEARCH: the biological hypothesis is encoded and used to narrow the space, which is the paper's answer to having far more candidate biomarkers than samples system-or-tool-building
Method, as described: Kruskal-Wallis for significance, pairwise Wilcoxon among subclasses for consistency, linear discriminant analysis for effect size

Legend

claim typeclaim_typethe shape of the claim: existence, mechanism, method, critique, prediction, null
concept edgeconcept_edgesan asserted relation between two concepts, with the sentence asserting it
conceptconceptsan idea the paper works with, quoted where the paper uses it
contributioncontributionwhat the paper claims to add
controlcontrolsan experiment run to eliminate a rival explanation
limitationlimitationswhat the paper says its evidence cannot support
mechanismmechanismshow the reported effect is said to come about
methodmethodhow the paper produced its evidence
object of studyobject_of_studywhat the paper is about — the thing it investigates
phenomenonphenomenonthe effect or regularity under study
research questionresearch_questionthe question the paper sets itself
sensesensesa distinct use of a term, quoted where the paper fixes it

The paper

The full text is not reproduced here. This article is not cleared for redistribution, so the page carries the tag layer only. Its evidence sentences are withheld; the grounding status remains with each tag, and the article itself is at https://doi.org/10.1186/gb-2011-12-6-r60. The reading view exists for the papers whose licence permits it.

Every tag on this page

claim_type 1 · concept_edges 4 · concepts 16 · contribution 1 · controls 1 · limitations 4 · mechanisms 3 · method 1 · object_of_study 1 · phenomenon 1 · research_question 1 · senses 2

Relations on this page carry a quotation for the claim. Where a relation was separately evidenced — and so tested against the vocabulary for its type — the row says so; none of 4 relations here carry that mark. The rest are the tagger’s reading of the sentence quoted beside them.

This record holds no relations between claims. A layer is empty when the tagger recorded nothing in it — which is not the same as the paper having nothing to record.

facettagfieldconf.whose words
object_of_studymetagenomic features - organisms, clades, OTUs, genes or pathways - that differ between two or more microbial communities
Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.
object_of_studythe paper's words
research_questionhow to find biomarkers that EXPLAIN a difference between conditions rather than merely differ across them
Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.
research_questionthe paper's words
contributionLEfSe: significance, biological consistency and effect size coupled into one procedure, which the paper says no existing method provides together
Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.
contributionthe paper's words
claim_typemethod
Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.
claim_typethe paper's words
phenomenondifferential abundance of microbial features between phenotypes
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phenomenonthe paper's words
methodsystem-or-tool-building
Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.
methodthe paper's words
mechanismsmechanisms
Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.
about this quote: the quote carries a line-break hyphen scar: the paper's “Kruskal-Wallis” is staged as “Kruskal- Wallis”. Verbatim against the staged text; the damage is mid-name and cannot be re-sliced around. Confidence 0.85 under an earlier note of ours.
mechanisms[0]0.85the tagger's words
mechanismsmechanisms
Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.
mechanisms[1]0.95the tagger's words
mechanismsmechanisms
Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.
mechanisms[2]0.95the tagger's words
limitationsTHE TRADE IS STATED AND PRICED: a substantially better false positive rate is bought with a moderately increased false negative rate, and the paper says the user can adjust where it sits
Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.
limitations[0]0.95the tagger's words
limitationsThere are typically far more candidate biomarkers than samples, which is a property of the data and not of the method
Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.
about this quote: the quote carries a spurious space inside a word (taxonomy shape 8): “associated with” is staged as “associated w ith”. Confidence 0.85.
limitations[1]0.85the tagger's words
limitationsMicrobial communities show remarkably high inter-subject variability, alongside sequencing errors and chimeric reads
Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.
limitations[2]0.95the tagger's words
limitationsFinding a biomarker is stated to be only a PRECURSOR to understanding a mechanism - the method does not claim to deliver the biology
Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.
limitations[3]0.95the tagger's words
controlsthe approach validated on three independent bodies of data - human microbiomes, a mouse model of ulcerative colitis, and environmental samples
Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.
eliminates: a biomarker method tuned to one dataset's structure - three data sources of different kinds are what shows the discovery is not a property of any one of them · outcome (stated by the tagger, no quotation): held
controls[0]0.85the tagger's words
conceptsclass comparison
Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.
concepts[0]0.95the paper's words
conceptsclass discovery
Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.
concepts[1]0.95the paper's words
conceptsclass prediction
Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.
concepts[2]0.95the paper's words
conceptsLEfSe
Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.
also in: LEfSe
concepts[3]0.95the paper's words
conceptseffect size
Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.
also in: effect size
concepts[4]0.95the paper's words
conceptsbiological consistency
Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.
concepts[5]0.95the paper's words
conceptseffect relevance
Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.
concepts[6]0.95the paper's words
conceptsstatistical significance
Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.
concepts[7]0.95the paper's words
conceptsbiomarkers
Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.
also in: biomarkers
concepts[8]0.95the paper's words
conceptsfalse positive rate
Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.
concepts[9]0.95the paper's words
conceptsfalse negative rate
Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.
concepts[10]0.95the paper's words
conceptsP-value
Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.
also in: P-value
concepts[11]0.95the paper's words
conceptsinter-subject variability
Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.
concepts[12]0.95the paper's words
conceptsWilcoxon rank-sum test
Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.
concepts[13]0.85the paper's words
conceptsprior biological knowledge
Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.
concepts[14]0.95the paper's words
conceptshigh-dimensional data
Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.
concepts[15]0.85the paper's words
sensesclass comparison - EXPLAINING a difference between phenotypes in terms of consistent pathways or mechanisms. Distinguished by the paper from class DISCOVERY (finding subtypes) and class PREDICTION (assigning a new sample) - three tasks, one dataset, and the paper says which one it is doing
Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.
senses[0]0.95the tagger's words
senseseffect size - USED HERE AS AN ORTHOGONAL AXIS TO THE P-VALUE, not as a refinement of it: a very significant difference can be too small to matter, and a marker at p = 0.01 can carry a large effect whose significance was eaten by technical noise
Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.
senses[1]0.95the tagger's words
concept_edgesclass comparison —distinct-from→ class prediction
Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.
strength of the relation: 1
concept_edges[0]the tagger's words
concept_edgeseffect size —distinct-from→ statistical significance
Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.
strength of the relation: 1
concept_edges[1]the tagger's words
concept_edgesbiological consistency —part-of→ LEfSe
Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.
strength of the relation: 1
concept_edges[2]the tagger's words
concept_edgeseffect relevance —part-of→ LEfSe
Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.
strength of the relation: 1
concept_edges[3]the tagger's words

Interpretive choices

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What was deliberately not tagged, and why, is recorded per paper by the tagger. Where a paper has no such record, this page says so rather than implying that nothing was declined.

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