A python-based library that enables the exploration of proteomic datasets on the peptide level.
AlphaMap is a tool for peptide level MS data exploration. You can load and inspect MS data analyzed by either MaxQuant or Spectronaut. Uploaded data is processed and formatted for visual inspection of the sequence coverage of any selected protein and its identified post-translational modifications (PTMs). UniProt information is available to directly annotate sequence regions of interest such as protein domains, secondary structures, sequence variants, known PTMs, etc.
AlphaMap was developed by the Mann Labs at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry and is freely available with an Apache License.
AlphaMap can be installed and used on Windows and MacOS. There are three different types of installation possible:
- One-click GUI installer: Choose this installation if you only want the GUI and/or keep things as simple as possible.
- Pip installer: Choose this installation if you want to use AlphaMap as a Python package in an existing Python 3.8 environment (e.g. a Jupyter notebook). If needed, the GUI can be installed with pip as well.
- Developer installer: Choose this installation if you are familiar with CLI tools, conda and Python. This installation allows access to all available features of AlphaMap and even allows to modify its source code directly.
The GUI of AlphaMap is a completely stand-alone tool that requires no knowledge of Python. Click on one of the links below to download the latest release for:
IMPORTANT: Please refer to the GUI manual for detailed instructions on the installation, troubleshooting and usage of the stand-alone AlphaMap GUI.
AlphaMap can be installed in an existing Python 3.8 environment with a single bash
command. This bash
command can also be run directly from within a Jupyter notebook by prepending it with a !
.
pip install alphamap
When a new version of AlphaMap becomes available, the old version can easily be upgraded by running e.g. the command again with an additional --upgrade
flag:
pip install alphamap --upgrade
NOTE: When installing with pip
, UniProt information is not included. Upon first usage of a specific Organism, its information will be automatically downloaded from UniProt.
AlphaMap can also be installed in editable (i.e. developer) mode with a few bash
commands. This allows to fully customize the software and even modify the source code to your specific needs. When an editable Python package is installed, its source code is stored in a transparent location of your choice. While optional, it is advised to first (create and) navigate to e.g. a general software folder:
mkdir ~/folder/where/to/install/software
cd ~/folder/where/to/install/software
Next, download the AlphaMap repository from GitHub either directly or with a git
command. This creates a new AlphaMap subfolder in your current directory.
git clone https://github.com/MannLabs/alphamap.git
cd alphamap
For any Python package, it is highly recommended to use a conda virtual environment. AlphaMap can either be installed in a new conda environment or in an already existing environment. Note that dependency conflicts can occur with already existing packages in the latter case! Once a conda environment is activated, AlphaMap and all its dependencies need to be installed.
conda create -n alphamap python=3.8 -y
conda activate alphamap
pip install -e .
-
By using the editable flag
-e
, all modifications to the AlphaMap source code folder are directly reflected when running AlphaMap. Note that the AlphaMap folder cannot be moved and/or renamed if an editable version is installed. -
When using Jupyter notebooks and multiple conda environments direcly from the terminal, it is recommended to
conda install nb_conda_kernels
in the conda base environment. Hereafter, running ajupyter notebook
from the conda base environment should have apython [conda env: alphamap]
kernel available, in addition to all other conda kernels in which the commandconda install ipykernel
was run.
AlphaMap has direct data import options for MaxQuant and Spectronaut.
AlphaMap takes the evidence.txt file from MaxQuant as input format. A reduced example file is available for download here.
AlphaMap takes Spectronaut results exported in normal long format (.csv or .tsv) as input. Necessary columns include:
- PEP.AllOccuringProteinAccessions
- EG.ModifiedSequence
- R.FileName
To ensure proper formatting of the Spectronaut output, an export scheme is available for download here.
A reduced example file is also available for download here.
There are two ways to use AlphaMap:
- GUI: This allows to interactively import and visualize the data.
- Python: This allows to access data and explore it interactively with custom code.
NOTE: The first time you use a fresh installation of AlphaMap, it is often quite slow because some functions might still need compilation on your local operating system and architecture. Subsequent use should be a lot faster.
Please refer to the GUI manual for detailed instructions on the installation and usage of the stand-alone AlphaMap GUI.
If the GUI was not installed through a one-click GUI installer, it can be activated with the following bash
command:
alphamap
Note that this needs to be prepended with a !
when you want to run this from within a Jupyter notebook. When the command is run directly from the command-line, make sure you use the right environment (activate it with e.g. conda activate alphamap
or set an alias to the binary executable).
AlphaMap can be imported as a Python package into any Python script or notebook with the command import alphamap
.
A Jupyter notebook tutorial is available to demonstrate how to load and visualize data interactively. When running locally it provides interactive plots, which are not rendered on GitHub.
AlphaMap includes fasta files and UniProt annotations for: 'Human', 'Mouse', 'Rat', 'Cow', 'Zebrafish', 'Drosophila', 'Caenorhabditis elegans', 'Slime mold', 'Arabidopsis thaliana', 'Rice', 'Escherichia coli', 'Bacillus subtilis' and 'Saccharomyces cerevisiae'. If additional organisms are of interest, corresponding .fasta files and sequence annotations can be downloaded directly from UniProt. A Jupyter notebook tutorial shows how to load and format a UniProt annotation file.