Shotgun metagenomic sequencing offers an unparalleled level of detail for understanding the structure and function of microbial communities, but existing analytical approaches are limited by a concentration on taxonomic classifications that may obscure functional links. In this study the authors have introduced expam, a tool that uses trees and is taxonomy-independent to identify biologically significant clades from shotgun metagenomic sequencing.
Open-source Python programme expam is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 3.0. You can find tutorials, source code, and installation instructions for expam at https://github.com/seansolari/expam.
Reference:
expam—high-resolution analysis of metagenomes using distance trees. Bioinformatics 38(20): 4814-4816