Unipept 4.0: Functional Analysis of Metaproteome Data

Unipept ( https://unipept.ugent.be ) is a web application for metaproteome data analysis, with an initial focus on tryptic-peptide-based biodiversity analysis of MS/MS samples. Because the true potential of metaproteomics lies in gaining insight into the expressed functions of complex environmental samples, the 4.0 release of Unipept introduces complementary functional analysis based on GO terms and EC numbers. Integration of this new functional analysis with the existing biodiversity analysis is an important asset of the extended pipeline. As a proof of concept, a human faecal metaproteome data set from 15 healthy subjects was reanalyzed with Unipept 4.0, yielding fast, detailed, and straightforward characterization of taxon-specific catalytic functions that is shown to be consistent with previous results from a BLAST-based functional analysis of the same data.