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Record W4412828777 · doi:10.1101/2025.07.29.666888

How to prepare the input data and run MCScanX efficiently?

2025· preprint· en· W4412828777 on OpenAlexafffund
Xi Zhang, David Roy Smith

Bibliographic record

VenuebioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · 2025
Typepreprint
Languageen
FieldBiochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
TopicGenomics and Phylogenetic Studies
Canadian institutionsWestern UniversityDalhousie University
FundersNatural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada
KeywordsComputer scienceParallel computingProcess engineeringEngineering

Abstract

fetched live from OpenAlex

Abstract The protocol by Wang et al. is particularly useful as it outlines the steps for efficiently identifying colinear blocks in intra-and inter-species BLASTP outputs by using MCScanX. We recently discovered that the protocol lacks the pre-processing steps for checking if there are multiple isoforms derived from alternative splicing. Conserved sequences derived from alternative splicing can have similar functional domains, to avoid mis-prediction of gene duplicates, especially for the genome data from NCBI or other online resources. Without this step, the number of duplicate genes will be overrepresented. Besides we shared some useful experience to faster preparing the input data and easier running MCScanX. This is including alternative options to prepare the ‘.gff’ input file and iterated all-against-all BLASTP processing. Lastly, we want to raise awareness of the potential challenges when preparing the input files and highlight potential issues when using the protocol.

Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.

How this classification was reachedexpand

Full frame machine prediction

Teacher imitation

Not calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.

metaresearch head score (Codex)0.009
metaresearch head score (Gemma)0.044
Version: metacan-v3-hybrid-931329e0061cValidation status: machine_predicted_unvalidated
Candidate categoriesnone
Consensus categoriesnone
DomainCandidate signal: none · Consensus signal: none
Study designCandidate signal: Not applicable · Consensus signal: Not applicable
GenreCandidate signal: Methods · Consensus signal: Methods
Teacher disagreement score0.129
Threshold uncertainty score0.431

Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)

CategoryCodexGemma
Metaresearch0.0090.044
Meta-epidemiology (narrow)0.0040.003
Meta-epidemiology (broad)0.0030.002
Bibliometrics0.0030.004
Science and technology studies0.0020.001
Scholarly communication0.0050.006
Open science0.0040.004
Research integrity0.0020.007
Insufficient payload (model declined to judge)0.1290.128

Machine scores (provisional)

The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.

Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.

Opus teacher head0.015
GPT teacher head0.230
Teacher spread0.215 · how far apart the two teachers sit on this one work
Validation statusscore_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from it

Classification

machine, unvalidated

Machine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.

The models applied no category: nothing in the taxonomy fit this work.
Study designNot applicable
Domainnot available
GenreMethods

How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".

Quick stats

Citations1
Published2025
Admission routes2
Has abstractyes

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