Cohort stratified metabolic performance analysis

Cohort-stratified metabolic performance analysis

Summary

This skill uses PRIMA-Panel to quantify the effect of pre- and post-centrifugation processing delays on NMR metabolomic measurements across a sample cohort, generating delay-stratified performance reports that surface metabolite concentration shifts and data quality degradation.

When to use

When you have uploaded a pre-analytical data table containing sample metadata, processing delay annotations (pre- and post-centrifugation times), and paired NMR metabolomic measurements for a plasma or serum cohort, and you need to determine how processing delays impact metabolite stability and quantify minor vs. major concentration changes across the cohort.

When NOT to use

• Input data lacks pre-analytical metadata (e.g., centrifugation timing, SPREC classification) — PRIMA-Panel requires these fields to parse and validate the structure.
• Sample cohort contains only a single time-point (no delay variation) — the skill is designed to investigate effects across processing delay strata.
• Metabolomic platform is not NMR (e.g., LC-MS/MS, GC-MS) — PRIMA-Panel is instrument-specific to NMR-based measurements.
• Data are already aggregated into summary statistics — the skill requires raw or minimally processed per-sample metabolite measurements.

Inputs

• Pre-analytical data table (CSV, TSV, or Excel) with columns: sample identifier, pre-centrifugation delay (minutes), post-centrifugation delay (minutes), SPREC classification, and NMR metabolomic measurements (metabolite concentrations)

Outputs

• Interactive performance report table (HTML or CSV) summarizing cohort-level metabolite concentration shifts, stratified by pre- and post-centrifugation delay windows
• Delay-stratified metabolite change annotations (minor and major threshold violations per metabolite)
• Data quality indicators and stability metrics across the sample cohort

How to apply

Load the pre-analytical data table into PRIMA-Panel and parse its structure to validate presence of required fields for cohort identification and processing delay annotation (pre-centrifugation delay in minutes and post-centrifugation delay in minutes, stratified by SPREC classification). Use the 'Single' tab to set slider-controlled thresholds for pre- and post-centrifugation time windows. PRIMA-Panel then calculates per-metabolite concentration shifts and flags minor and major changes relative to user-adjustable percentage thresholds. The resulting interactive table displays cohort-level statistics and identifies which metabolites degrade most severely within each delay window. Download the report as HTML (formatted) or CSV (raw table) for downstream interpretation.

Related tools

• PRIMA-Panel (Interactive data exploration and performance report generation platform; accepts uploaded pre-analytical tables and calculates metabolite concentration shifts stratified by processing delay windows) — https://github.com/funkam/PRIMA
• QC-Tool (Associated quality control utility for pre-analytical data validation and SPREC classification) — https://github.com/funkam/QC-Tool

Evaluation signals

• Parsed input table contains all required fields (sample ID, pre-centrifugation delay, post-centrifugation delay, SPREC classification, metabolite concentrations) with no missing values in the delay or metabolite columns.
• Generated report table lists all metabolites present in the input cohort and flags minor/major changes according to user-specified percentage thresholds for each delay window.
• Cohort-level statistics (e.g., mean concentration, SD, delay-stratified subgroup counts) are consistent with manual spot-checks of the input data.
• HTML and CSV exports are non-empty, properly formatted, and contain identical underlying data (format-agnostic verification).
• Metabolite concentration shifts increase monotonically (or step-wise) with increasing processing delay, consistent with known stability degradation in blood samples.

Limitations

• PRIMA-Panel is specialized to peripheral blood samples (plasma/serum); applicability to other biofluids or tissue types is not documented.
• The tool assumes NMR metabolomic measurements; integration with other omics modalities (proteomics, lipidomics) is not supported.
• Percentage thresholds for minor/major changes and color scheme are user-adjustable but not validated against external stability benchmarks; calibration is analyst-dependent.
• Processing delay times must be accurately recorded in the input table; timing errors or missing delay annotations will cause validation failure or misinterpretation.

Evidence

• [readme] Core tool definition: "The PRIMA-Panel is a tool to investigate the effect of processing delays on metabolic parameters in samples of peripheral blood (plasma / serum)."
• [readme] Input data requirements: "PRIMA-Panel allows the creation of so called performance reports for sample cohorts. Here a data table with pre-analytical information can be uploaded"
• [other] Workflow: parsing and delay stratification: "Parse and validate the input table structure to ensure required fields for cohort identification and processing delay annotation are present."
• [other] Workflow: performance metric calculation: "Calculate performance metrics quantifying the effect of processing delays on metabolic parameters (e.g., metabolite concentration shifts, data quality degradation) across the sample cohort."
• [readme] Output format and interaction: "The 'Single' tab allows the user to set a pre-centrifugation time and a post-centrifugation using a Slider. A table is then generated that higlights a minor and a major change for each metabolite in"
• [readme] Export capabilities: "The table can be downloaded as a .HTML report or the table directly as .csv (or other formats)."