Rubén Grillo-Risco, Maksym Kupchyk Tiurin, Carla Perpiñá-Clérigues, Francisco J Cordero Felipe, Samuel Lozano Juárez, María Iglesia-Vayá, Francisco García-García
The growing number of omics datasets in public repositories provides an opportunity to enhance data reusability through data integration; however, complex statistical barriers often hinder the effective combination of independent studies. To address this problem, we present MetaOmixTools, an interactive web-based suite that streamlines the meta-analysis of ranked feature lists and functional enrichment profiles. The platform integrates 2 primary modules-MetaRank and MetaEnrich-within a code-free environment. MetaRank generates robust consensus rankings from multiple lists by implementing weighted (e.g., rank product) and unweighted (e.g., robust rank aggregation) strategies, while MetaEnrich performs functional meta-analyses by combining probability values from individual overrepresentation analyses using established statistical techniques. Using case studies, we established consensus rankings for acute spinal cord injury across heterogeneous platforms, identifying conserved inflammatory marker genes in the up-regulated gene list (e.g., Slpi, Ccl2, and Msr1) and synaptic loss genes in the down-regulated gene list (e.g., Kcna2, Dao, and Ppp1r1b), and also characterized inverse functional intersections between melanoma brain metastasis and neurodegenerative diseases. By providing intuitive, real-time visualization and reproducible workflows, MetaOmixTools empowers the research community to extract consistent biological insights from multistudy data. We have made MetaOmixTools freely available at https://bioinfo.cipf.es/metaomixtools/.