Tax4Fun

Tax4Fun predicts functional profiles of microbial communities from 16S rRNA gene sequencing data to infer the metabolic potential of those communities.

Key Features:

• Functional Prediction from Phylogenetic Data: Uses phylogenetic information derived from 16S rRNA sequences to infer metabolic capabilities, enabling functional inference from cost-effective 16S sequencing compared to whole metagenome shotgun sequencing.
• Integration with Existing Tools: Processes outputs from SILVAngs and QIIME when used with a SILVA database extension to integrate with common 16S analysis workflows.
• Performance Evaluation: Evaluated using paired metagenome/16S rRNA datasets, demonstrating predicted functional profiles that approximate those obtained from shotgun metagenomic sequencing.

Scientific Applications:

• Comparative Functional Profiling: Compare metabolic capabilities across different environments or experimental conditions using predicted functional profiles from 16S data.
• Taxon-specific Functional Inference: Investigate the potential functional roles of specific taxa in ecosystem processes by linking taxonomic composition to inferred metabolic functions.
• Large-scale Surveys of Diversity and Function: Enable large-scale surveys of microbial diversity and function by using cost-effective 16S rRNA sequencing to approximate metagenomic functional profiles.

Methodology:

Maps 16S rRNA gene sequences to a curated database that links phylogenetic information with known functional traits to infer community metabolic functions.