Skip to content
Review Open access

nf-core/magmap: Map metatranscriptomes to large collections of genomes

Jul 2026 · Bioinformatics · Vol 42 · 0 citations · 27 references
Medicine

TL;DR

The nf-core/magmap pipeline is presented, which provides a reproducible, easy-to-access, and well-documented workflow for selecting reference genomes, mapping to them, and quantifying features.

Abstract

Abstract Summary The lack of publicly available reference genomes has forced annotation of metatranscriptomes to either use direct alignment of sequence reads to reference databases or de novo assembly. As more and more natural environments are covered by metagenomic surveys, this is rapidly changing. This opens up the possibility of genome-resolved studies of prokaryotic metatranscriptomes by mapping to genomes from public repositories or metagenome-assembled genomes derived from the same environment. Here, we present the nf-core/magmap pipeline that provides a reproducible, easy-to-access, and well-documented workflow for selecting reference genomes, mapping to them, and quantifying features. Genomes can be drawn from public sources or originate from private collections. The pipeline is primarily aimed at prokaryotic communities but can, together with collections of reference mature gene sequences, also be applied to eukaryotes. Availability and implementation The nf-core/magmap pipeline is implemented in Nextflow and part of the nf-core collaboration. The pipeline is available at the nf-core website (https://nf-co.re/magmap) and GitHub (https://github.com/nf-core/magmap).

Read PDF

Similar papers

Open access Aug 2026

GenomeCompendium: A database for the integrated analysis of repeats, assembly quality and functional content of complete prokaryotic genomes

The GenomeCompendium is released, a public database and interactive analysis tool for complete prokaryotic genomes and it is shown that complex, repeat-rich genomes are more common than previously estimated.

Tiberiu Totu, Garance Jaques, B. Heiniger et al. · 0 citations
Open access Jul 2026

Annotation of glycoside hydrolases in unassembled metagenomes using CAZyOGH

Abstract Motivation Functional characterization of microbiomes often relies on the sequencing of metagenomic DNA extracted from environmental samples, with current approaches using metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs). Although glycoside hydrolases (GHs) are central to carbon cycling, accurate annotation of GHs in metagenomic datasets remains challenging due to the multidomain architecture of carbohydrate-active enzymes and the prevalence of unassembled short reads due to limitations in the MAG-generation process. Results Here, we present CAZyOGH (CAZymes Open-source GH annotation), a curated reference database for the domain-specific identification of 135 protein domains spanning 99 GH families with well-defined catalytic domain signatures. CAZyOGH focuses on individual GH domains, enabling robust annotation of both assembled and unassembled metagenomic data. We validated CAZyOGH by reanalyzing genomes listed in CAZy db, where predicted GH profiles closely matched reported values. Next, we used CAZyOGH to analyze 12 human gut metagenomes and 12 newly sequenced soil microbiomes to reveal environment-specific GH repertoires. By accurately detecting catalytic domains independent of the genomic context, CAZyOGH improves sensitivity and specificity in short-read metagenomic annotation. This framework provides a scalable and reproducible approach to investigate carbohydrate-active enzymes across ecosystems, advancing our capacity to characterize microbial functional potential in global carbon cycling. Availability and implementation CAZyOGH data is available on figshare (https://figshare.com/projects/CAZyO_GH/267770).

N. Griffin, Alison E Hughes, D. S. Erdody et al. · 0 citations
Open access Aug 2026

metaIVP: an integrative metavirome focused metagenomic processing pipeline

The metaIVP is introduced, a modular, integrative, and flexible framework designed to systematically manage genome content purification, re-binning, quality assessment, and downstream analyses of viral and non-viral metagenomic contexts that addresses a key gap in metavirome analysis.

Kalyan Sahu, Qiuming Yao · 0 citations
Open access Aug 2026

nf-core/genomeqc: a best-practice pipeline for comparing genome and assembly quality

The rapid growth in publicly available genome assemblies has made selecting genomes suitable for downstream analyses increasingly challenging. Differences in assembly and annotation quality can influence gene completeness, duplication rates, contiguity, repeat representation, and other characteristics. Assessing genome quality therefore requires integrating multiple complementary quality metrics that are often generated by independent tools. Here, we present nf-core/genomeqc, a workflow for assessing and comparing genome assemblies. The pipeline accepts RefSeq/GenBank accessions for automatic genome and annotation retrieval, or local genome (FASTA) and annotation (GFF3/GTF) files. It integrates complementary analyses of assembly contiguity, gene completeness, annotation quality, repeat content and other quality metrics using tools such as BUSCO, QUAST, Merqury, and AGAT, before combining the results on a phylogenetic tree for visualisation and comparison across species. GenomeQC is implemented in Nextflow within the nf-core framework, providing an accessible, reproducible, scalable and community-driven workflow for genome quality assessment.

C. D. Wyatt, Fernando Duarte Frutos, Stephen D. Turner et al. · 0 citations
Review Open access Aug 2026

FAIRyMAGs - a series of FAIR Galaxy workflows for the generation of metagenome assembled genomes

FAIRyMAGs provides an accessible, extensible, and reproducible framework for genome-resolved metagenomics, reducing technical barriers and enabling methodological innovation through community-driven development within the adaptable Galaxy ecosystem.

P. Zierep, Mina Hojat Ansari, Patrick Bühler et al. · 0 citations