Contents

1 Introduction

1.1 Latest: Cardinal 3.6

Cardinal 3.6 is a major update with breaking changes. It bring support many of the new low-level signal processing functions implemented for matter 2.4 and matter 2.6. Almost the entire Cardinal codebase has been refactored to support these improvements.

The most notable of the new features include:

  • Redesign class hierarchy that includes a greater emphasis on spectra: SpectralImagingData, SpectralImagingArrays, and SpectralImagingExperiment lay the groundwork for the new data structures

  • Updated MSImagingExperiment class with a new counterpart MSImagingArrays class for better representing raw spectra.

  • New spectral processing methods in smooth():

    • Improved Gaussian filtering
    • Bilateral and adaptive bilateral filtering
    • Nonlinear diffusion filtering
    • Guided filtering
    • Peak-aware guided filtering
    • Savitsky-Golay smoothing

  • New spectral baseline reduction methods in reduceBaseline():

    • Interpolation from local minima
    • Convex hull estimation
    • Sensitive nonlinear iterative peak (SNIP) clipping
    • Running medians

  • New spectral alignment methods in recalibrate():

    • Local maxima-based alignment using local regression
    • Dynamic time warping
    • Correlation optimized warping

  • New peak picking methods in peakPick():

    • Derivative-based noise estimation
    • Quantile-based noise estimation
    • SD/MAD-based noise estimatino
    • Dynamic peak filtering
    • Continuous wavelet transform (CWT)

  • Improved image() contrast enhancement via enhance:

    • Improved histogram equalization
    • Contrast-limited adaptive histogram equalization (CLAHE)

  • Improved image() spatial smoothing via smooth:

    • Improved Gaussian filtering
    • Bilateral and adaptive bilateral filtering
    • Nonlinear diffusion filtering
    • Guided filtering

  • All statistical methods improved and updated

    • New and improved crossValidate() method
    • New dimension reduction method NMF()
    • Updated PCA() and spatialFastmap()
    • Updated PLS() and OPLS() with new algorithms
    • Updated spatialKMeans() with better initializations
    • Updated spatialShrunkenCentroids() with better initializations
    • Updated spatialDGMM() with improved stability
    • Updated meansTest() with improved data preparation
    • New SpatialResults output with simplified interface

And many other updates! Many redundant functions and methods have been merged to simplify and streamline workflows. Many unnecessary functions and methods have been deprecated.

Major improvements from earlier versions are further described below.

1.2 Previous updates from Cardinal 3

Cardinal 3 lays the groundwork for future improvements to the existing toolbox of pre-processing, visualization, and statistical methods for mass spectrometry (MS) imaging experiments. Cardinal has been updated to support matter 2, and legacy support has been dropped.

Despite minimal user-visible changes in Cardinal (at first), the entire matter package that provides the backend for Cardinal’s computing on larger-than-memory MS imaging datasets has been rewritten. This should provide more robust support for larger-than-memory computations, as well as greater flexibility in handling many data files in the future.

Further changes will be coming soon to Cardinal 3 in future point updates that are aimed to greatly improve the user experience and simplify the code that users need to write to process and analyze MS imaging data.

Major improvements from earlier versions are further described below.

1.3 Previous updates from Cardinal 2

Cardinal 2 provides new classes and methods for the manipulation, transformation, visualization, and analysis of imaging experiments–specifically MS imaging experiments.

MS imaging is a rapidly advancing field with consistent improvements in instrumentation for both MALDI and DESI imaging experiments. Both mass resolution and spatial resolution are steadily increasing, and MS imaging experiments grow increasingly complex.

The first version of Cardinal was written with certain assumptions about MS imaging data that are no longer true. For example, the basic assumption that the raw spectra can be fully loaded into memory is unreasonable for many MS imaging experiments today.

Cardinal 2 was re-written from the ground up to handle the evolving needs of high-resolution MS imaging experiments. Some advancements include:

  • New imaging experiment classes such as ImagingExperiment, SparseImagingExperiment, and MSImagingExperiment provide better support for out-of-memory datasets and a more flexible representation of complex experiments

  • New imaging metadata classes such as PositionDataFrame and MassDataFrame make it easier to manipulate experimental runs, pixel coordinates, and m/z-values by storing them as separate slots rather than ordinary columns

  • New plot() and image() visualization methods that can handle non-gridded pixel coordinates and allow assigning the resulting plot (and data) to a variable for later re-plotting

  • Support for writing imzML in addition to reading it; more options and support for importing out-of-memory imzML for both “continuous” and “processed” formats

  • Data manipulation and summarization verbs such as subset(), aggregate(), and summarizeFeatures(), etc. for easier subsetting and summarization of imaging datasets

  • Delayed pre-processing via a new process() method that allows queueing of delayed pre-processing methods such as normalize() and peakPick() for later execution

  • Parallel processing support via the BiocParallel package for all pre-processing methods and any statistical analysis methods with a BPPARAM option

Classes from older versions of Cardinal should be coerced to their Cardinal 2 equivalents. For example, to return an updated MSImageSet object called x, use as(x, "MSImagingExperiment").

2 Installation

Cardinal can be installed via the BiocManager package.

install.packages("BiocManager")
BiocManager::install("Cardinal")

The same function can be used to update Cardinal and other Bioconductor packages.

Once installed, Cardinal can be loaded with library():

library(Cardinal)

3 Data import

Cardinal natively supports reading and writing imzML (both “continuous” and “processed” types) and Analyze 7.5 formats via the readMSIData() and writeMSIData() functions.

The imzML format is an open standard designed specifically for interchange of mass spectrometry imaging datasets. Vendor-specific raw formats can be converted to imzML with the help of free applications available online at .

3.1 Reading “continuous” imzML

We can read an example of a “continuous” imzML file from the CardinalIO package:

path_continuous <- CardinalIO::exampleImzMLFile("continuous")
path_continuous
## [1] "/home/biocbuild/bbs-3.19-bioc/R/site-library/CardinalIO/extdata/Example_Continuous_imzML1.1.1/Example_Continuous.imzML"
mse_tiny <- readMSIData(path_continuous)
mse_tiny
## MSImagingExperiment with 8399 features and 9 spectra 
## spectraData(1): intensity
## featureData(1): mz
## pixelData(3): x, y, run
## coord(2): x = 1...3, y = 1...3
## runNames(1): Example_Continuous
## experimentData(14): spectrumType, spectrumRepresentation, contactName, ..., scanType, lineScanDirection, pixelSize
## mass range: 100.0833 to 799.9167 
## centroided: FALSE

A “continuous” imzML file contains mass spectra where all of the spectra have the same m/z values. It is returned as an MSImagingExperiment object, which contains both the spectra and the experimental metadata.

3.2 Reading “processed” imzML

We can also read an example of a “processed” imzML file from the CardinalIO package:

path_processed <- CardinalIO::exampleImzMLFile("processed")
path_processed
## [1] "/home/biocbuild/bbs-3.19-bioc/R/site-library/CardinalIO/extdata/Example_Processed_imzML1.1.1/Example_Processed.imzML"
msa_tiny <- readMSIData(path_processed)
msa_tiny
## MSImagingArrays with 9 spectra 
## spectraData(2): mz, intensity
## pixelData(3): x, y, run
## coord(2): x = 1...3, y = 1...3
## runNames(1): Example_Processed
## experimentData(14): spectrumType, spectrumRepresentation, contactName, ..., scanType, lineScanDirection, pixelSize
## centroided: FALSE 
## continuous: FALSE

A “processed” imzML file contains mass spectra where each spectrum has its own m/z values. Despite the name, it can still contain profile spectra. For “processed” imzML, the data is returned as an MSImagingArrays object.

4 Data structures for MS imaging

Cardinal 3.6 introduces a simple set of new data structures for organizing data from MS imaging experiments.

Cardinal classes

These are further explored in the next sections.

4.1 MSImagingArrays: Mass spectra with differing m/z values

In Cardinal, mass spectral data with differing m/z values are stored in MSImagingArrays objects.

msa_tiny
## MSImagingArrays with 9 spectra 
## spectraData(2): mz, intensity
## pixelData(3): x, y, run
## coord(2): x = 1...3, y = 1...3
## runNames(1): Example_Processed
## experimentData(14): spectrumType, spectrumRepresentation, contactName, ..., scanType, lineScanDirection, pixelSize
## centroided: FALSE 
## continuous: FALSE

An MSImagingArrays object is conceptually a list of mass spectra with a companion data frame of spectrum-level pixel metadata.

This dataset contains 9 mass spectra. It can be subset like a list:

msa_tiny[1:3]
## MSImagingArrays with 3 spectra 
## spectraData(2): mz, intensity
## pixelData(3): x, y, run
## coord(2): x = 1...3, y = 1...1
## runNames(1): Example_Processed
## experimentData(14): spectrumType, spectrumRepresentation, contactName, ..., scanType, lineScanDirection, pixelSize
## centroided: FALSE 
## continuous: FALSE

4.1.1 Accessing spectra arrays with spectraData()

The spectral data can be accessed with spectraData().

spectraData(msa_tiny)
## SpectraArrays of length 2 
##        names(2):          mz   intensity
##        class(2): matter_list matter_list
##       length(2):         <9>         <9>
##     real mem(2):     6.58 KB     6.58 KB
##  virtual mem(2):   302.36 KB   302.36 KB

The list of spectral data arrays are stored in a SpectraArrays object. An MSImagingArrays object must have at least two arrays named “mz” and “intensity”, which are lists of the m/z arrays and intensity arrays.

The spectra() accessor can be used to access specific spectra arrays.

spectra(msa_tiny, "mz")
## <9 length> matter_list :: out-of-memory list
##              [1]      [2]      [3]      [4]      [5]      [6] ...
## $Scan=1 100.0833 100.1667 100.2500 100.3333 100.4167 100.5000 ...
##              [1]      [2]      [3]      [4]      [5]      [6] ...
## $Scan=2 100.0833 100.1667 100.2500 100.3333 100.4167 100.5000 ...
##              [1]      [2]      [3]      [4]      [5]      [6] ...
## $Scan=3 100.0833 100.1667 100.2500 100.3333 100.4167 100.5000 ...
##              [1]      [2]      [3]      [4]      [5]      [6] ...
## $Scan=4 100.0833 100.1667 100.2500 100.3333 100.4167 100.5000 ...
##              [1]      [2]      [3]      [4]      [5]      [6] ...
## $Scan=5 100.0833 100.1667 100.2500 100.3333 100.4167 100.5000 ...
##              [1]      [2]      [3]      [4]      [5]      [6] ...
## $Scan=6 100.0833 100.1667 100.2500 100.3333 100.4167 100.5000 ...
## ...
## (6.58 KB real | 302.36 KB virtual)
spectra(msa_tiny, "intensity")
## <9 length> matter_list :: out-of-memory list
##         [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] ...
## $Scan=1   0   0   0   0   0   0 ...
##         [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] ...
## $Scan=2   0   0   0   0   0   0 ...
##         [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] ...
## $Scan=3   0   0   0   0   0   0 ...
##         [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] ...
## $Scan=4   0   0   0   0   0   0 ...
##         [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] ...
## $Scan=5   0   0   0   0   0   0 ...
##         [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] ...
## $Scan=6   0   0   0   0   0   0 ...
## ...
## (6.58 KB real | 302.36 KB virtual)

Alternatively, we can use the mz() and intensity() accessors to get these specific arrays.

mz(msa_tiny)
## <9 length> matter_list :: out-of-memory list
##              [1]      [2]      [3]      [4]      [5]      [6] ...
## $Scan=1 100.0833 100.1667 100.2500 100.3333 100.4167 100.5000 ...
##              [1]      [2]      [3]      [4]      [5]      [6] ...
## $Scan=2 100.0833 100.1667 100.2500 100.3333 100.4167 100.5000 ...
##              [1]      [2]      [3]      [4]      [5]      [6] ...
## $Scan=3 100.0833 100.1667 100.2500 100.3333 100.4167 100.5000 ...
##              [1]      [2]      [3]      [4]      [5]      [6] ...
## $Scan=4 100.0833 100.1667 100.2500 100.3333 100.4167 100.5000 ...
##              [1]      [2]      [3]      [4]      [5]      [6] ...
## $Scan=5 100.0833 100.1667 100.2500 100.3333 100.4167 100.5000 ...
##              [1]      [2]      [3]      [4]      [5]      [6] ...
## $Scan=6 100.0833 100.1667 100.2500 100.3333 100.4167 100.5000 ...
## ...
## (6.58 KB real | 302.36 KB virtual)
intensity(msa_tiny)
## <9 length> matter_list :: out-of-memory list
##         [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] ...
## $Scan=1   0   0   0   0   0   0 ...
##         [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] ...
## $Scan=2   0   0   0   0   0   0 ...
##         [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] ...
## $Scan=3   0   0   0   0   0   0 ...
##         [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] ...
## $Scan=4   0   0   0   0   0   0 ...
##         [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] ...
## $Scan=5   0   0   0   0   0   0 ...
##         [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] ...
## $Scan=6   0   0   0   0   0   0 ...
## ...
## (6.58 KB real | 302.36 KB virtual)

Note that the full spectra are not fully loaded into memory. Instead, they are represented as out-of-memory matter lists. For the most part, these lists can be treated as ordinary R lists, but the spectra are only loaded from storage on-the-fly as they are accessed.

4.1.2 Accessing pixel metadata with pixelData()

The spectrum-level pixel metadata can be accessed with pixelData(). Alternatively, pData() is a shorter alias that does the same thing.

pixelData(msa_tiny)
## PositionDataFrame with 9 rows and 3 columns
##                x         y               run
##        <numeric> <numeric>          <factor>
## Scan=1         1         1 Example_Processed
## Scan=2         2         1 Example_Processed
## Scan=3         3         1 Example_Processed
## Scan=4         1         2 Example_Processed
## Scan=5         2         2 Example_Processed
## Scan=6         3         2 Example_Processed
## Scan=7         1         3 Example_Processed
## Scan=8         2         3 Example_Processed
## Scan=9         3         3 Example_Processed
## coord(2): x, y
## run(1): run
pData(msa_tiny)
## PositionDataFrame with 9 rows and 3 columns
##                x         y               run
##        <numeric> <numeric>          <factor>
## Scan=1         1         1 Example_Processed
## Scan=2         2         1 Example_Processed
## Scan=3         3         1 Example_Processed
## Scan=4         1         2 Example_Processed
## Scan=5         2         2 Example_Processed
## Scan=6         3         2 Example_Processed
## Scan=7         1         3 Example_Processed
## Scan=8         2         3 Example_Processed
## Scan=9         3         3 Example_Processed
## coord(2): x, y
## run(1): run

The pixel metadata is stored in a PositionDataFrame, with a row for each mass spectrum in the dataset. This data frame stores position information, run information, and all other spectrum-level metadata.

The coord() accessor retrieves the columns giving the positions of the spectra.

coord(msa_tiny)
## DataFrame with 9 rows and 2 columns
##                x         y
##        <numeric> <numeric>
## Scan=1         1         1
## Scan=2         2         1
## Scan=3         3         1
## Scan=4         1         2
## Scan=5         2         2
## Scan=6         3         2
## Scan=7         1         3
## Scan=8         2         3
## Scan=9         3         3

Use runNames() to access the names of the experimental runs (by default set to the file name) and run() to access the run for each spectrum.

runNames(msa_tiny)
## [1] "Example_Processed"
head(run(msa_tiny))
## [1] Example_Processed Example_Processed Example_Processed Example_Processed
## [5] Example_Processed Example_Processed
## Levels: Example_Processed

This data frame is also used to store any other spectrum-level metadata or statistical summaries.

4.2 MSImagingExperiment: Mass spectra with shared m/z values

In Cardinal, mass spectral data with the same m/z values are stored in MSImagingExperiment objects.

mse_tiny
## MSImagingExperiment with 8399 features and 9 spectra 
## spectraData(1): intensity
## featureData(1): mz
## pixelData(3): x, y, run
## coord(2): x = 1...3, y = 1...3
## runNames(1): Example_Continuous
## experimentData(14): spectrumType, spectrumRepresentation, contactName, ..., scanType, lineScanDirection, pixelSize
## mass range: 100.0833 to 799.9167 
## centroided: FALSE

An MSImagingExperiment object is conceptually a matrix where the mass spectra are columns. The rows represent the flattened images for each mass feature.

This dataset contains 9 mass spectra each with the same 8,399 m/z values. It can be subset like a matrix:

mse_tiny[1:500, 1:3]
## MSImagingExperiment with 500 features and 3 spectra 
## spectraData(1): intensity
## featureData(1): mz
## pixelData(3): x, y, run
## coord(2): x = 1...3, y = 1...1
## runNames(1): Example_Continuous
## experimentData(14): spectrumType, spectrumRepresentation, contactName, ..., scanType, lineScanDirection, pixelSize
## mass range: 100.0833 to 141.6667 
## centroided: FALSE

For an MSImagingExperiment, the spectral data are stored as a single matrix of intensities that can be accessed with spectra().

spectraData(mse_tiny)
## SpectraArrays of length 1 
##        names(1):  intensity
##        class(1): matter_mat
##          dim(1): <8399 x 9>
##     real mem(1):    6.99 KB
##  virtual mem(1):  302.36 KB
spectra(mse_tiny)
## <8399 row x 9 col> matter_mat :: out-of-memory double matrix
##      Scan=1 Scan=2 Scan=3 Scan=4 Scan=5 Scan=6 ...
## [1,]      0      0      0      0      0      0 ...
## [2,]      0      0      0      0      0      0 ...
## [3,]      0      0      0      0      0      0 ...
## [4,]      0      0      0      0      0      0 ...
## [5,]      0      0      0      0      0      0 ...
## [6,]      0      0      0      0      0      0 ...
## ...     ...    ...    ...    ...    ...    ... ...
## (6.99 KB real | 302.36 KB virtual)

The spectrum-level pixel metadata is accessible via pixelData() just like MSImagingArrays.

pixelData(mse_tiny)
## PositionDataFrame with 9 rows and 3 columns
##                x         y                run
##        <numeric> <numeric>           <factor>
## Scan=1         1         1 Example_Continuous
## Scan=2         2         1 Example_Continuous
## Scan=3         3         1 Example_Continuous
## Scan=4         1         2 Example_Continuous
## Scan=5         2         2 Example_Continuous
## Scan=6         3         2 Example_Continuous
## Scan=7         1         3 Example_Continuous
## Scan=8         2         3 Example_Continuous
## Scan=9         3         3 Example_Continuous
## coord(2): x, y
## run(1): run

The primary difference between MSImagingExperiment and MSImagingArrays is that that all of spectra share the same m/z values, so MSImagingExperiment can store feature metadata.

4.2.1 Accessing feature metadata with featureData()

The feature metadata can be accessed with featureData(). Alternatively, fData() is a shorter alias that does the same thing.

featureData(mse_tiny)
## MassDataFrame with 8399 rows and 1 column
##             mz
##      <numeric>
## 1      100.083
## 2      100.167
## 3      100.250
## 4      100.333
## 5      100.417
## ...        ...
## 8395   799.583
## 8396   799.667
## 8397   799.750
## 8398   799.833
## 8399   799.917
## mz(1): mz
fData(mse_tiny)
## MassDataFrame with 8399 rows and 1 column
##             mz
##      <numeric>
## 1      100.083
## 2      100.167
## 3      100.250
## 4      100.333
## 5      100.417
## ...        ...
## 8395   799.583
## 8396   799.667
## 8397   799.750
## 8398   799.833
## 8399   799.917
## mz(1): mz

Because all of the mass spectra share the same m/z values, a single vector of m/z values can be accessed using mz().

head(mz(mse_tiny))
## [1] 100.0833 100.1667 100.2500 100.3333 100.4167 100.5000

This data frame is also used to store any other feature-level metadata or statistical summaries.

4.2.2 Building from scratch

Typically data is read into R using readMSIData(), but sometimes it is necessary to build a MSImagingExperiment object from scratch. This may be necessary if trying to import data formats other than imzML or Analyze 7.5.

set.seed(2020)
s <- simulateSpectra(n=9, npeaks=10, from=500, to=600)

coord <- expand.grid(x=1:3, y=1:3)
run <- factor(rep("run0", nrow(coord)))

fdata <- MassDataFrame(mz=s$mz)
pdata <- PositionDataFrame(run=run, coord=coord)

out <- MSImagingExperiment(spectraData=s$intensity,
    featureData=fdata,
    pixelData=pdata)
out
## MSImagingExperiment with 456 features and 9 spectra 
## spectraData(1): intensity
## featureData(1): mz
## pixelData(3): x, y, run
## coord(2): x = 1...3, y = 1...3
## runNames(1): run0
## mass range: 500.0000 to 599.8071 
## centroided: NA

For loading other data formats into R, read.csv() and read.table() can be used to read CSV and tab-delimited text files, respectively.

Likewise, write.csv() and write.table() can be used to write pixel metadata and feature metadata after coercing them to an ordinary R data.frame with as.data.frame().

Use saveRDS() and readRDS() to save and read and entire R object such as a MSImagingExperiment. Note that if intensity data is to be saved as well, it should be pulled into memory and coerced to an R matrix with as.matrix() first. However, it is typically better to write an imzML file using writeMSIData().

5 Visualization

Visualization of mass spectra and molecular ion images is vital for exploratory analysis of MS imaging experiments. Cardinal provides plot() methods for plotting mass spectra and aimage() methods for plotting images.

We will use simulated data for visualization. We will create versions of the dataset represented as both MSImagingArrays and MSImagingExperiment.

# Simulate an MSImagingExperiment
set.seed(2020)
mse <- simulateImage(preset=6, dim=c(32,32), baseline=0.5)
mse
## MSImagingExperiment with 4412 features and 2048 spectra 
## spectraData(1): intensity
## featureData(1): mz
## pixelData(8): x, y, run, ..., circleA, circleB, condition
## coord(2): x = 1...32, y = 1...32
## runNames(2): runA1, runB1
## metadata(1): design
## mass range:  396.6325 to 2315.5676 
## centroided: FALSE
# Create a version as MSImagingArrays
msa <- convertMSImagingExperiment2Arrays(mse)
msa
## MSImagingArrays with 2048 spectra 
## spectraData(2): mz, intensity
## pixelData(8): x, y, run, ..., circleA, circleB, condition
## coord(2): x = 1...32, y = 1...32
## runNames(2): runA1, runB1
## metadata(1): design
## centroided: FALSE 
## continuous: TRUE

5.1 Visualizing spectra with plot()

Use plot() to plot mass spectra from a MSImagingArrays or MSImagingExperiment object. Below we plot the 463rd and 628th mass spectra in the dataset.

plot(msa, i=c(496, 1520))

Alternatively, we can specify the coordinates.

plot(msa, coord=list(x=16, y=16))

We can use superpose to overlay the mass spectra and xlim to control the mass range.

plot(msa, i=c(496, 1520), xlim=c(1000, 1250),
    superpose=TRUE)

5.2 Visualizing images with image()

Use image() to plot ion images from MSImagingExperiment. Below we plot the image for the 2,489th m/z value.

image(mse, i=2769)

Alternatively, we can specify the m/z value. The closest matching m/z value will be used.

image(mse, mz=1200)

Use tolerance to sum together the images for a all m/z values within a certain tolerance.

image(mse, mz=1200, tolerance=0.5, units="mz")

By default, images from all experimental runs are plotted. Use run to specify specific runs to plot by name or index.

image(mse, mz=1200, run="runA1")

Alternatively, use subset to plot an arbitrary subset of pixels.

image(mse, mz=1200, subset=mse$circleA | mse$circleB)

Multiplicative variance in spectral intensities can cause images to be noisy and dark due to hot spots.

Often, images may require some type of processing and enhancement to improve interpretation.

image(mse, mz=1200, smooth="gaussian")

image(mse, mz=1200, enhance="histogram")

Multiple images can be superposed with superpose=TRUE. Use scale=TRUE to rescale all images to the same intensity range.

image(mse, mz=c(474, 1619), superpose=TRUE,
    enhance="adaptive", scale=TRUE)

5.3 Region-of-interest selection

Use selectROI() to select regions-of-interest on an ion image. It is important to specify a subset so that selection is only made on a single experimental run, otherwise results may be unexpected. The form of selectROI() is the same as image().

sampleA <- selectROI(mse, mz=1200, subset=run(mse) == "run0")
sampleB <- selectROI(mse, mz=1200, subset=run(mse) == "run1")

selectROI() returns a logical vector specifying which pixels from the imaging experiment are contained in the selected region.

makeFactor() can then be used to combine multiple logical vectors (e.g., from selectROI()) into a single factor.

regions <- makeFactor(A=sampleA, B=sampleB)

5.4 Saving plots and images

Plots and images can be saved to a file by using R’s built-in graphics devices.

Use pdf() to initialize a PDF graphics device, create the plot, and then use dev.off() to turn off the graphics device.

Any plots printed while the graphics device is active will be saved to the specified file(s).

pdffile <- tempfile(fileext=".pdf")

pdf(file=pdffile, width=9, height=4)
image(mse, mz=1200)
dev.off()

Graphics devices for png(), jpeg(), bmp(), and tiff() are also available. See their documentation for usage.

5.5 Dark themes

While many software for MS imaging data use a light-on-dark theme, Cardinal uses a dark-on-light theme by default. However, a dark theme is also provided with style="dark.

image(mse, mz=1200, style="dark")

5.6 A note on plotting speed

While plotting spectra should typically be fast, plotting images can be be (much) slower for large out-of-memory datasets.

This is due to the way the spectra are stored in imzML and Analyze files. Exracting the images simply takes longer than reading the spectra.

For the fastest visualization of images, experiments should be coerced to an in-memory matrix.

Also note that all Cardinal visualizations produce a plot()-able object that can be assigned to a variable and plot()-ed later without the need to read the data again. Some parameters can even be updated this way, such as smoothing, contrast enhancement, and scaling.

p <- image(mse, mz=1200)
plot(p, smooth="guide")

This is useful for re-creating or updating plots without accessing the data again.

6 Common operations on MS imaging datasets

6.1 Subsetting

MSImagingArrays and MSImagingExperiment can be subsetted using the [ operator.

When subsetting MSImagingArrays, the object is treated as a list of mass spectra.

# subset first 5 mass spectra
msa[1:5]
## MSImagingArrays with 5 spectra 
## spectraData(2): mz, intensity
## pixelData(8): x, y, run, ..., circleA, circleB, condition
## coord(2): x = 1...5, y = 1...1
## runNames(1): runA1
## metadata(1): design
## centroided: FALSE 
## continuous: TRUE

When subsetting MSImagingExperiment, the “rows” are the flattened images, and the “columns” are the mass spectra.

# subset first 10 images and first 5 mass spectra
mse[1:10, 1:5]
## MSImagingExperiment with 10 features and 5 spectra 
## spectraData(1): intensity
## featureData(1): mz
## pixelData(8): x, y, run, ..., circleA, circleB, condition
## coord(2): x = 1...5, y = 1...1
## runNames(1): runA1
## metadata(1): design
## mass range: 396.6325 to 398.0629 
## centroided: FALSE

6.1.1 Finding indices of mass spectra and images

Subsetting the dataset this way requires knowing the desired row and column indices.

Use features() to find row indices of a MSImagingExperiment corresponding to specific m/z values or other feature metadata.

# get row index corresponding to m/z 1200
features(mse, mz=1200)
## [1] 2769
# get row indices corresponding to m/z 1199 - 1201
features(mse, 1199 < mz & mz < 1201)
## [1] 2767 2768 2769 2770

Use pixels() to find indices of MSImagingArrays or column indices of MSImagingExperiment that correspond to specific mass spectra based on coordinates or other metadata.

# get column indices corresponding to x = 10, y = 10 in all runs
pixels(mse, coord=list(x=10, y=10))
## [1]  298 1322
# get column indices corresponding to x <= 3, y <= 3 in "runA1"
pixels(mse, x <= 3, y <= 3, run == "runA1")
## [1]  1  2  3 33 34 35 65 66 67

These methods can be used to determine row/column indices of particular m/z-values or pixel coordinates to use for subsetting.

fid <- features(mse, 1199 < mz, mz < 1201)
pid <- pixels(mse, x <= 3, y <= 3, run == "runA1")
mse[fid, pid]
## MSImagingExperiment with 4 features and 9 spectra 
## spectraData(1): intensity
## featureData(1): mz
## pixelData(8): x, y, run, ..., circleA, circleB, condition
## coord(2): x = 1...3, y = 1...3
## runNames(1): runA1
## metadata(1): design
## mass range: 1199.20 to 1200.64 
## centroided: FALSE

6.1.2 Using subset() and friends

Alternatively, subset() can be used to subset MS imaging datasets based on metadata.

For MSImagingArrays, subset() takes a single argument specifying the pixels (i.e., the mass spectra).

# subset MSImagingArrays
subset(msa, x <= 3 & x <= 3)
## MSImagingArrays with 192 spectra 
## spectraData(2): mz, intensity
## pixelData(8): x, y, run, ..., circleA, circleB, condition
## coord(2): x = 1...3, y = 1...32
## runNames(2): runA1, runB1
## metadata(1): design
## centroided: FALSE 
## continuous: TRUE

For MSImagingExperiment, subset() takes a two arguments specifying both the features and the pixels.

# subset MSImagingExperiment
subset(mse, 1199 < mz & mz < 1201, x <= 3 & x <= 3)
## MSImagingExperiment with 4 features and 192 spectra 
## spectraData(1): intensity
## featureData(1): mz
## pixelData(8): x, y, run, ..., circleA, circleB, condition
## coord(2): x = 1...3, y = 1...32
## runNames(2): runA1, runB1
## metadata(1): design
## mass range: 1199.20 to 1200.64 
## centroided: FALSE

We can also use subsetFeatures() and subsetPixels() if subsetting an MSImagingExperiment.

# subset features
subsetFeatures(mse, 1199 < mz, mz < 1201)
## MSImagingExperiment with 4 features and 2048 spectra 
## spectraData(1): intensity
## featureData(1): mz
## pixelData(8): x, y, run, ..., circleA, circleB, condition
## coord(2): x = 1...32, y = 1...32
## runNames(2): runA1, runB1
## metadata(1): design
## mass range: 1199.20 to 1200.64 
## centroided: FALSE
# subset pixels
subsetPixels(mse, x <= 3, y <= 3)
## MSImagingExperiment with 4412 features and 18 spectra 
## spectraData(1): intensity
## featureData(1): mz
## pixelData(8): x, y, run, ..., circleA, circleB, condition
## coord(2): x = 1...3, y = 1...3
## runNames(2): runA1, runB1
## metadata(1): design
## mass range:  396.6325 to 2315.5676 
## centroided: FALSE

6.2 Slicing

MSImagingExperiment represents the data as a matrix, where each column is a mass spectrum, rather than as a true “data cube”. This is typically simpler when operating on the mass spectra, and more space efficient when the data is non-rectangular.

Sometimes, however, it is useful to index into the data as an actual “data cube”, with explicit array dimensions for each spatial dimension.

Use slice() to slice an MSImagingExperiment as a data cube and extract images.

# slice image for first mass feature
a <- slice(mse, 1)
dim(a)
##   x   y run 
##  32  32   2

Because we only sliced a single image, the first 2 dimensions are the spatial dimensions and the 3rd dimension are the experimental runs. We can use drop=FALSE to indicate we want to preserve the feature dimension even for a single image.

# slice image for m/z 1200
a2 <- slice(mse, mz=1200, drop=FALSE)
dim(a2)
##       x       y     run feature 
##      32      32       2       1

Note that when plotting images from raw arrays, the images are upside-down due to differing coordinate conventions used by graphics::image().

par(mfcol=c(1,2), new=FALSE)
image(a2[,,1,1], asp=1)
image(a2[,,2,1], asp=1)

6.3 Combining

Because MSImagingExperiment is matrix-like, rbind() and cbind() can be used to combine multiple MSImagingExperiment objects by “row” or “column”, assumping certain conditions are met.

Use cbind() to combine datasets from different experimental runs. The m/z-values must match between all datasets to succesfully combine them.

# divide dataset into separate objects for each run
mse_run0 <- mse[,run(mse) == "runA1"]
mse_run1 <- mse[,run(mse) == "runB1"]
mse_run0
## MSImagingExperiment with 4412 features and 1024 spectra 
## spectraData(1): intensity
## featureData(1): mz
## pixelData(8): x, y, run, ..., circleA, circleB, condition
## coord(2): x = 1...32, y = 1...32
## runNames(1): runA1
## metadata(1): design
## mass range:  396.6325 to 2315.5676 
## centroided: FALSE
mse_run1
## MSImagingExperiment with 4412 features and 1024 spectra 
## spectraData(1): intensity
## featureData(1): mz
## pixelData(8): x, y, run, ..., circleA, circleB, condition
## coord(2): x = 1...32, y = 1...32
## runNames(1): runB1
## metadata(1): design
## mass range:  396.6325 to 2315.5676 
## centroided: FALSE
# recombine the separate datasets back together
mse_cbind <- cbind(mse_run0, mse_run1)
mse_cbind
## MSImagingExperiment with 4412 features and 2048 spectra 
## spectraData(1): intensity
## featureData(1): mz
## pixelData(8): x, y, run, ..., circleA, circleB, condition
## coord(2): x = 1...32, y = 1...32
## runNames(2): runA1, runB1
## metadata(2): design, design
## mass range:  396.6325 to 2315.5676 
## centroided: FALSE

Some processing may be necessary to ensure datasets are compatible before combining them.

6.4 Getters and setters

Most components of an MSImagingExperiment that can be accessed through getter functions like spectraData(), featureData(), and pixelData() can also be re-assigned with analogous setter functions. These can likewise be used to get and set columns of the pixel and feature metadata.

Note that pData() and fData() are aliases for pixelData() and featureData(), respectively. The $ operator will access the corresponding columns of pixelData().

Here, we use makeFactor() to create a new pixel metadata columns.

mse$region <- makeFactor(A=mse$circleA, B=mse$circleB,
    other=mse$square1 | mse$square2)
pData(mse)
## PositionDataFrame with 2048 rows and 9 columns
##              x         y      run   square1   square2   circleA   circleB
##      <integer> <integer> <factor> <logical> <logical> <logical> <logical>
## 1            1         1    runA1      TRUE     FALSE     FALSE     FALSE
## 2            2         1    runA1      TRUE     FALSE     FALSE     FALSE
## 3            3         1    runA1      TRUE     FALSE     FALSE     FALSE
## 4            4         1    runA1      TRUE     FALSE     FALSE     FALSE
## 5            5         1    runA1      TRUE     FALSE     FALSE     FALSE
## ...        ...       ...      ...       ...       ...       ...       ...
## 2044        28        32    runB1     FALSE      TRUE     FALSE     FALSE
## 2045        29        32    runB1     FALSE      TRUE     FALSE     FALSE
## 2046        30        32    runB1     FALSE      TRUE     FALSE     FALSE
## 2047        31        32    runB1     FALSE      TRUE     FALSE     FALSE
## 2048        32        32    runB1     FALSE      TRUE     FALSE     FALSE
##      condition   region
##       <factor> <factor>
## 1            A    other
## 2            A    other
## 3            A    other
## 4            A    other
## 5            A    other
## ...        ...      ...
## 2044         B    other
## 2045         B    other
## 2046         B    other
## 2047         B    other
## 2048         B    other
## coord(2): x, y
## run(1): run

Here, we create new feature metadata columns based on the design of the simulated data.

fData(mse)$region <- makeFactor(
    circle=mz(mse) > 1070 & mz(mse) < 1420,
    square=mz(mse) < 1070 | mz(mse) > 1420)
fData(mse)
## MassDataFrame with 4412 rows and 2 columns
##             mz   region
##      <numeric> <factor>
## 1      396.632   square
## 2      396.791   square
## 3      396.950   square
## 4      397.109   square
## 5      397.268   square
## ...        ...      ...
## 4408   2311.87   square
## 4409   2312.79   square
## 4410   2313.72   square
## 4411   2314.64   square
## 4412   2315.57   square
## mz(1): mz

Use spectra() to access elements of the spectraData() list of spectra arrays by name or index. It is possible to have multiple spectra arrays. Calling spectra() with no other arguments will get or set the first element of spectraData(). Providing a name or index will get or set that element.

# create a new spectra matrix of log-intensities
spectra(mse, "log2intensity") <- log2(spectra(mse) + 1)
spectraData(mse)
## SpectraArrays of length 2 
##        names(2):     intensity log2intensity
##        class(2):        matrix        matrix
##          dim(2): <4412 x 2048> <4412 x 2048>
##     real mem(2):      72.29 MB      72.29 MB
##  virtual mem(2):         NA MB         NA MB
# examine the new spectra matrix
spectra(mse, "log2intensity")[1:5, 1:5]
##           [,1]      [,2]      [,3]      [,4]      [,5]
## [1,] 0.5849625 0.5849625 0.6792640 0.5849625 0.6373492
## [2,] 0.6735412 0.5846330 0.5846330 0.6878864 0.6439013
## [3,] 0.6375360 0.5843036 0.5843036 0.6040574 0.7837109
## [4,] 0.5839741 0.5839741 0.6322633 0.5839741 0.5839741
## [5,] 0.7097456 0.5836447 0.5858090 0.5836447 0.5836447

Whether or not the spectra have been centroided or not can be accessed using centroided()

centroided(mse)
## [1] FALSE

This can also be used to set whether the spectra should be treated as centroided or not.

centroided(mse) <- FALSE

6.5 Summarization (e.g., mean spectra, TIC, etc.)

Cardinal provides functions for summarizing over the features or pixels of an MSImagingExperiment.

  • summarizeFeatures() summarizes by feature (e.g., mean spectrum)

  • summarizePixels() summarizes by pixel (e.g., TIC)

When applied to an MSImagingExperiment, the summary statistics are stored as new columns in featureData() or pixelData(), respectively.

Below, we summarize and plot the mean specrum.

# calculate mean spectrum
mse <- summarizeFeatures(mse, stat="mean")

# mean spectrum stored in featureData
fData(mse)
## MassDataFrame with 4412 rows and 3 columns
##             mz   region      mean
##      <numeric> <factor> <numeric>
## 1      396.632   square  0.537116
## 2      396.791   square  0.538702
## 3      396.950   square  0.538601
## 4      397.109   square  0.538087
## 5      397.268   square  0.536583
## ...        ...      ...       ...
## 4408   2311.87   square 0.0407869
## 4409   2312.79   square 0.0429495
## 4410   2313.72   square 0.0417405
## 4411   2314.64   square 0.0407761
## 4412   2315.57   square 0.0399924
## mz(1): mz
# plot mean spectrum
plot(mse, "mean", xlab="m/z", ylab="Intensity")

Below, we summarize and plot the total ion current.

# calculate TIC
mse <- summarizePixels(mse, stat=c(TIC="sum"))

# TIC stored in pixelData
pData(mse)
## PositionDataFrame with 2048 rows and 10 columns
##              x         y      run   square1   square2   circleA   circleB
##      <integer> <integer> <factor> <logical> <logical> <logical> <logical>
## 1            1         1    runA1      TRUE     FALSE     FALSE     FALSE
## 2            2         1    runA1      TRUE     FALSE     FALSE     FALSE
## 3            3         1    runA1      TRUE     FALSE     FALSE     FALSE
## 4            4         1    runA1      TRUE     FALSE     FALSE     FALSE
## 5            5         1    runA1      TRUE     FALSE     FALSE     FALSE
## ...        ...       ...      ...       ...       ...       ...       ...
## 2044        28        32    runB1     FALSE      TRUE     FALSE     FALSE
## 2045        29        32    runB1     FALSE      TRUE     FALSE     FALSE
## 2046        30        32    runB1     FALSE      TRUE     FALSE     FALSE
## 2047        31        32    runB1     FALSE      TRUE     FALSE     FALSE
## 2048        32        32    runB1     FALSE      TRUE     FALSE     FALSE
##      condition   region       TIC
##       <factor> <factor> <numeric>
## 1            A    other   868.521
## 2            A    other   780.343
## 3            A    other   751.550
## 4            A    other   783.852
## 5            A    other   814.877
## ...        ...      ...       ...
## 2044         B    other   765.326
## 2045         B    other   762.584
## 2046         B    other   752.111
## 2047         B    other   785.329
## 2048         B    other   747.071
## coord(2): x, y
## run(1): run
# plot TIC
image(mse, "TIC", col=matter::cpal("Cividis"))

It is also possible to summarize over different groups.

Here, we summarize over different pixel groups and plot the resulting mean spectra.

# calculate mean spectrum
mse <- summarizeFeatures(mse, stat="mean", groups=mse$region)

# mean spectrum stored in featureData
fData(mse)
## MassDataFrame with 4412 rows and 6 columns
##             mz   region      mean    A.mean    B.mean other.mean
##      <numeric> <factor> <numeric> <numeric> <numeric>  <numeric>
## 1      396.632   square  0.537116  0.531295  0.542252   0.538372
## 2      396.791   square  0.538702  0.541248  0.537103   0.537658
## 3      396.950   square  0.538601  0.534716  0.538309   0.537723
## 4      397.109   square  0.538087  0.542078  0.538334   0.537532
## 5      397.268   square  0.536583  0.535422  0.536332   0.536533
## ...        ...      ...       ...       ...       ...        ...
## 4408   2311.87   square 0.0407869 0.0330571 0.0406696  0.0404724
## 4409   2312.79   square 0.0429495 0.0417446 0.0434861  0.0439267
## 4410   2313.72   square 0.0417405 0.0434559 0.0424288  0.0438313
## 4411   2314.64   square 0.0407761 0.0348792 0.0434447  0.0395090
## 4412   2315.57   square 0.0399924 0.0328694 0.0372971  0.0397565
## mz(1): mz
# plot mean spectrum
plot(mse, c("A.mean", "B.mean"), xlab="m/z", ylab="Intensity")

Here, we summarize over different feature groups and plot the resulting images.

# calculate mean spectrum
mse <- summarizePixels(mse, stat="sum", groups=fData(mse)$region)

# mean spectrum stored in featureData
pData(mse)
## PositionDataFrame with 2048 rows and 12 columns
##              x         y      run   square1   square2   circleA   circleB
##      <integer> <integer> <factor> <logical> <logical> <logical> <logical>
## 1            1         1    runA1      TRUE     FALSE     FALSE     FALSE
## 2            2         1    runA1      TRUE     FALSE     FALSE     FALSE
## 3            3         1    runA1      TRUE     FALSE     FALSE     FALSE
## 4            4         1    runA1      TRUE     FALSE     FALSE     FALSE
## 5            5         1    runA1      TRUE     FALSE     FALSE     FALSE
## ...        ...       ...      ...       ...       ...       ...       ...
## 2044        28        32    runB1     FALSE      TRUE     FALSE     FALSE
## 2045        29        32    runB1     FALSE      TRUE     FALSE     FALSE
## 2046        30        32    runB1     FALSE      TRUE     FALSE     FALSE
## 2047        31        32    runB1     FALSE      TRUE     FALSE     FALSE
## 2048        32        32    runB1     FALSE      TRUE     FALSE     FALSE
##      condition   region       TIC circle.sum square.sum
##       <factor> <factor> <numeric>  <numeric>  <numeric>
## 1            A    other   868.521   142.5006    726.021
## 2            A    other   780.343    99.4277    680.915
## 3            A    other   751.550    80.7285    670.821
## 4            A    other   783.852    99.4315    684.420
## 5            A    other   814.877   114.2836    700.593
## ...        ...      ...       ...        ...        ...
## 2044         B    other   765.326    72.3656    692.961
## 2045         B    other   762.584    70.0440    692.540
## 2046         B    other   752.111    72.1093    680.001
## 2047         B    other   785.329    80.6031    704.726
## 2048         B    other   747.071    69.7688    677.303
## coord(2): x, y
## run(1): run
# plot mean spectrum
image(mse, c("circle.sum", "square.sum"), scale=TRUE)

6.6 Loading data into memory

By default, Cardinal does not load the spectra from imzML and Analyze files into memory, but retrieves them from files when necessary. For very large datasets, this is necessary and memory-efficient.

However, for datasets that are known to fit in computer memory, this may be unnecessarily slow, especially when plotting images (which are perpendicular to how data are stored in the files).

# spectra are stored as an out-of-memory matrix
spectra(mse_tiny)
## <8399 row x 9 col> matter_mat :: out-of-memory double matrix
##      Scan=1 Scan=2 Scan=3 Scan=4 Scan=5 Scan=6 ...
## [1,]      0      0      0      0      0      0 ...
## [2,]      0      0      0      0      0      0 ...
## [3,]      0      0      0      0      0      0 ...
## [4,]      0      0      0      0      0      0 ...
## [5,]      0      0      0      0      0      0 ...
## [6,]      0      0      0      0      0      0 ...
## ...     ...    ...    ...    ...    ...    ... ...
## (6.99 KB real | 302.36 KB virtual)
spectraData(mse_tiny) # 'intensity' array is 'matter_mat' object
## SpectraArrays of length 1 
##        names(1):  intensity
##        class(1): matter_mat
##          dim(1): <8399 x 9>
##     real mem(1):    6.99 KB
##  virtual mem(1):  302.36 KB

For MSImagingExperiment, use as.matrix() on the spectra() to load the spectra into memory as a dense matrix.

# coerce spectra to an in-memory matrix
spectra(mse_tiny) <- as.matrix(spectra(mse_tiny))
spectraData(mse_tiny) # 'intensity' array is 'matrix' object
## SpectraArrays of length 1 
##        names(1):  intensity
##        class(1):     matrix
##          dim(1): <8399 x 9>
##     real mem(1):   605.8 KB
##  virtual mem(1):      NA KB

6.7 Coercion to/from other classes

Use as() to coerce between different data representations.

Here, we coerce from MSImagingArrays to MSImagingExperiment.

msa
## MSImagingArrays with 2048 spectra 
## spectraData(2): mz, intensity
## pixelData(8): x, y, run, ..., circleA, circleB, condition
## coord(2): x = 1...32, y = 1...32
## runNames(2): runA1, runB1
## metadata(1): design
## centroided: FALSE 
## continuous: TRUE
# coerce to MSImagingExperiment
as(msa, "MSImagingExperiment")
## MSImagingExperiment with 4412 features and 2048 spectra 
## spectraData(1): intensity
## featureData(1): mz
## pixelData(8): x, y, run, ..., circleA, circleB, condition
## coord(2): x = 1...32, y = 1...32
## runNames(2): runA1, runB1
## metadata(1): design
## mass range:  396.6325 to 2315.5676 
## centroided: FALSE

We can also coerce from MSImagingExperiment to MSImagingArrays.

mse
## MSImagingExperiment with 4412 features and 2048 spectra 
## spectraData(2): intensity, log2intensity
## featureData(6): mz, region, mean, A.mean, B.mean, other.mean
## pixelData(12): x, y, run, ..., TIC, circle.sum, square.sum
## coord(2): x = 1...32, y = 1...32
## runNames(2): runA1, runB1
## metadata(1): design
## mass range:  396.6325 to 2315.5676 
## centroided: FALSE
# coerce to MSImagingArrays
as(mse, "MSImagingArrays")
## MSImagingArrays with 2048 spectra 
## spectraData(2): mz, intensity
## pixelData(12): x, y, run, ..., TIC, circle.sum, square.sum
## coord(2): x = 1...32, y = 1...32
## runNames(2): runA1, runB1
## metadata(1): design
## centroided: FALSE 
## continuous: TRUE

This will often change the underlying data representation, so some information may be lost depending on the coercion.

In practice, it’s rarely necessary to coerce between data representations. Instead, it is more common to process the data into an MSImagingExperiment, as in the next section.

7 Pre-processing

Cardinal provides a full suite of pre-processing methods. Processing steps that are applied to mass spectra individually are be queued to be applied in sequence later. Use process() to apply queued processing steps.

We will demonstrate how to apply these pre-processing steps in the following sections.

7.1 Normalization

Use normalize() to queue normalization on MSImagingArrays or MSImagingExperiment.

msa_pre <- normalize(msa, method="tic")

The supported normalization methods include:

  • method="tic" performs total-ion-current (TIC) normalization

  • method="rms" performs root-mean-square (RMS) normalization

  • method="reference" normalizes spectra to a reference feature

TIC normalization is one of the most common normalization methods for mass spectrometry imaging. For comparison between datasets, TIC normalization requires that all spectra are the same length. RMS normalization is more appropriate when spectra are of different lengths.

Normalization to a reference is the most reliable form of normalization, but is only possible when the experiment contains a known reference peak with constant abundance throughout the dataset. This is often not possible in unsupervised and exploratory experiments.

(We won’t plot normalization, because it is simply re-scaling the intensities.)

7.2 Smoothing

Use smooth() to queue smoothing on MSImagingArrays or MSImagingExperiment.

p1 <- smooth(msa, method="gaussian") |>
    plot(coord=list(x=16, y=16),
        xlim=c(1150, 1450), linewidth=2)

p2 <- smooth(msa, method="sgolay") |>
    plot(coord=list(x=16, y=16),
        xlim=c(1150, 1450), linewidth=2)

matter::as_facets(list(p1, p2), nrow=2,
    labels=c("Gaussian smoothing", "Savitsky-Golay smoothing"))

Note above we use |> to chain together sequences of functions, and we can use plot() to preview the results of queued spectral processing before applying it.

The supported smoothing methods include:

  • method="gaussian" performs Gaussian smoothing

  • method="bilateral" performs bilateral filtering

  • method="adaptive" performs adaptive bilateral filtering

  • method="diff" performs nonlinear diffusion

  • method="guide" performs guided filtering

  • method="pag" performs peak-aware guided filtering

  • method="sgolay" performs Savitzky-Golay smoothing

  • method="ma" performs moving average smoothing

msa_pre <- smooth(msa_pre, method="gaussian")

7.3 Baseline subtraction

Use reduceBaseline() to queue baseline subtraction on MSImagingArrays or MSImagingExperiment.

p1 <- reduceBaseline(mse, method="locmin") |>
    plot(coord=list(x=16, y=16), linewidth=2)

p2 <- reduceBaseline(mse, method="median") |>
    plot(coord=list(x=16, y=16), linewidth=2)

matter::as_facets(list(p1, p2), nrow=2,
    labels=c("Local minima interpolation", "Running medians"))

The supported smoothing methods include:

  • method="locmin" interpolates a baseline from local minima

  • method="hull" uses convex hull estimation

  • method="snip" uses sensitive nonlinear iterative peak (SNIP) clipping

  • method="median" estimates a baseline from running medians

msa_pre <- reduceBaseline(msa_pre, method="locmin")

7.4 Recalibration

Although peak alignment (to be discussed shortly) will generally account for small differences in m/z values between spectra, alignment of the profile spectra is sometimes desireable as well.

Use recalibrate() to queue recalibration on MSImagingArrays or MSImagingExperiment.

First, we need to simulate spectra that are visibly in need of calibration.

set.seed(2020)
mse_drift <- simulateImage(preset=1, npeaks=10,
    from=500, to=600, sdmz=750, units="ppm")

plot(mse_drift, i=186:195, xlim=c(535, 570),
    superpose=TRUE, key=FALSE, linewidth=2)

To align the spectra, we need to provide a vector of reference m/z values of expected peaks. Here, we will simply use the peaks of the mean spectrum from estimateReferencePeaks().

peaks_drift <- estimateReferencePeaks(mse_drift)

mse_nodrift <- recalibrate(mse_drift, ref=peaks_drift,
    method="locmax", tolerance=1500, units="ppm")
mse_nodrift <- process(mse_nodrift)

plot(mse_nodrift, i=186:195, xlim=c(535, 570),
    superpose=TRUE, key=FALSE, linewidth=2)

The supported recalibration methods include:

  • method="locmax" uses local regression to shift the spectra

  • method="dtw" uses dynamic time warping (DTW)

  • method="cow" uses correlation optimized warping (COW)

The algorithms will shift the spectrum to try to match local maxima to the reference peaks. The maximum shift is given by tolerance. If tolerance is too small, the spectra may not be shifted enough. If tolerance is too large, the local maxima may be matched to the wrong reference peaks.

7.5 Peak processing

Peak processing encompasses multiple steps, including (1) peak detection, (2) aligning peaks across all spectra, (3) filtering peaks, and/or (4) extracting peaks from spectra based on a reference. Some of these steps are optional.

msa_pre <- process(msa_pre)

7.5.1 Peak picking

Use peakPick() to queue peak picking on MSImagingArrays or MSImagingExperiment.

p1 <- peakPick(msa_pre, method="diff", SNR=3) |>
    plot(coord=list(x=16, y=16), linewidth=2)

p2 <- peakPick(msa_pre, method="filter", SNR=3) |>
    plot(coord=list(x=16, y=16), linewidth=2)

matter::as_facets(list(p1, p2), nrow=2,
    labels=c("Derivative-based SNR", "Dynamic filtering-based SNR"))

We use SNR to designate the minimum signal-to-noise threshold for the detected peaks.

The supported peak picking methods include:

  • method="diff" estimates SNR from deviations between the spectrum and a rolling average of its derivative

  • method="sd" estimates SNR from the standard deviation of the spectrum convolved with a wavelet

  • method="mad" estimates SNR from the mean absolute deviation of the spectrum convolved with a wavelet

  • method="quantile" estimates SNR from a rolling quantile of the difference between the original spectrum and a smoothed spectrum

  • method="filter" uses dynamic filtering to separate peaks into signal peaks and noise peaks

  • method="cwt" uses the continuous wavelet transform (CWT)

msa_peaks <- peakPick(msa_pre, method="filter", SNR=3)

7.5.2 Peak alignment

Use peakAlign() to align the detected peaks.

Note that peakAlign() will automatically call process() if there are queued spectral processing steps.

mse_peaks <- peakAlign(msa_peaks, tolerance=200, units="ppm")
mse_peaks
## MSImagingExperiment with 4408 features and 2048 spectra 
## spectraData(1): intensity
## featureData(3): mz, count, freq
## pixelData(8): x, y, run, ..., circleA, circleB, condition
## coord(2): x = 1...32, y = 1...32
## runNames(2): runA1, runB1
## metadata(2): design, processing
## mass range:  396.9499 to 2313.7159 
## centroided: TRUE

Note that the result is returned as an MSImagingExperiment now that all of the spectra have been aligned to the same m/z values.

Peaks are aligned to candidate locations based on the the given tolerance. A set of reference peaks to use can be specified via ref.

In this case, no reference peaks are specified, so the candidate locations are generated automatically from the detected peaks. This may results in many extraneous peaks that need to be removed.

7.5.3 Peak filtering

When peaks are aligned without a reference, peakAlign() will return the count and frequency of each peak as count and freq columns in featureData().

fData(mse_peaks)
## MassDataFrame with 4408 rows and 3 columns
##             mz     count      freq
##      <numeric> <numeric> <numeric>
## 1      396.950       149 0.0727539
## 2      397.109       109 0.0532227
## 3      397.268       103 0.0502930
## 4      397.427       132 0.0644531
## 5      397.586       111 0.0541992
## ...        ...       ...       ...
## 4404   2310.02       118 0.0576172
## 4405   2310.94       117 0.0571289
## 4406   2311.87       130 0.0634766
## 4407   2312.79       112 0.0546875
## 4408   2313.72       120 0.0585938
## mz(1): mz
# filter to peaks with frequencies > 0.1
mse_filt <- subsetFeatures(mse_peaks, freq > 0.1)
fData(mse_filt)
## MassDataFrame with 35 rows and 3 columns
##            mz     count      freq
##     <numeric> <numeric> <numeric>
## 1     440.632       327  0.159668
## 2     440.808       208  0.101562
## 3     473.907       551  0.269043
## 4     551.924       352  0.171875
## 5     781.340       423  0.206543
## ...       ...       ...       ...
## 31    1828.79       218  0.106445
## 32    1859.03       543  0.265137
## 33    1881.47       223  0.108887
## 34    1882.23       240  0.117188
## 35    2105.29       335  0.163574
## mz(1): mz

Here, we use subsetFeatures() to subset the data to include only peaks observed in more than 10% of the dataset. For this dataset, that results in 35 peaks. (Note that the dataset was simulated with 30 peaks.)

mse_filt <- summarizeFeatures(mse_filt)

plot(mse_filt, "mean", xlab="m/z", ylab="Intensity",
    linewidth=2, annPeaks=10)

7.5.4 Peak picking based on a reference

We can also use peakPick() to queue peak summarization based on a set of reference peaks.

msa_peaks2 <- peakPick(msa_pre, ref=mz(mse_filt), type="area",
    tolerance=200, units="ppm")

mse_peaks2 <- process(msa_peaks2)

In this case, local peaks are matched to the reference peaks within tolerance. The peak is then expanded to the nearest local minima in both directions. The intensity of the peak is then summarized either by the maximum intensity (type="height") or sum of intensities (type="area").

mse_peaks2 <- summarizeFeatures(mse_peaks2)

plot(mse_peaks2, "mean", xlab="m/z", ylab="Intensity",
    linewidth=2, annPeaks=10)

7.5.5 Using peakProcess()

We can use peakProcess() to streamline the most common peak processing workflows.

Note that peakProcess() will automatically call process() if there are queued spectral processing steps.

mse_peaks3 <- peakProcess(msa_pre, method="diff", SNR=6,
    sampleSize=0.3, filterFreq=0.02)

mse_peaks3
## MSImagingExperiment with 83 features and 2048 spectra 
## spectraData(1): intensity
## featureData(3): mz, count, freq
## pixelData(8): x, y, run, ..., circleA, circleB, condition
## coord(2): x = 1...32, y = 1...32
## runNames(2): runA1, runB1
## metadata(2): design, processing
## mass range:  402.1063 to 2294.4777 
## centroided: TRUE

When sampleSize is specified, peakProcess() first performs peak picking and alignment on a subset of the spectra (as specified by sampleSize) to create a set of reference peaks. Then, these reference peaks are summarized for every spectrum in the full dataset.

The advantage of this approach is that all of the peaks detected in the sample spectra will be summarized for every spectrum. So it is less likely that there will be missing peaks due to low signal-to-noise ratio. However, the drawback is that rare peaks may be less likely to be detected if they are not in the sample.

Alternatively, using peakProcess() without setting sampleSize will perform peak picking followed by peak alignment as usual.

7.6 Binning

Use bin() to bin an MSImagingArrays or MSImagingExperiment dataset to an arbitrary resolution. The binning is applied on-the-fly, whenever data is accessed.

mse_binned <- bin(msa, resolution=1, units="mz")
mse_binned
## MSImagingExperiment with 1921 features and 2048 spectra 
## spectraData(1): intensity
## featureData(1): mz
## pixelData(8): x, y, run, ..., circleA, circleB, condition
## coord(2): x = 1...32, y = 1...32
## runNames(2): runA1, runB1
## metadata(1): design
## mass range:  396 to 2316 
## centroided: FALSE

Here, we bin a dataset to unit m/z resolution (i.e., spacing of 1 between m/z values).

7.7 Example processing workflow

Queueing processing steps makes it easy to chain together processing steps with the |> operator, and then apply them all at once.

mse_queue <- msa |>
    normalize() |>
    smooth() |>
    reduceBaseline() |>
    peakPick(SNR=6)

# preview processing
plot(mse_queue, coord=list(x=16, y=16), linewidth=2)

# apply processing and align peaks
mse_proc <- peakAlign(mse_queue)
mse_proc <- subsetFeatures(mse_proc, freq > 0.1)
mse_proc
## MSImagingExperiment with 26 features and 2048 spectra 
## spectraData(1): intensity
## featureData(3): mz, count, freq
## pixelData(8): x, y, run, ..., circleA, circleB, condition
## coord(2): x = 1...32, y = 1...32
## runNames(2): runA1, runB1
## metadata(2): design, processing
## mass range:  440.6265 to 2105.8753 
## centroided: TRUE

8 Data export

We can use writeMSIData() to write MSImagingArrays or MSImagingExperiment objects to imzML files.

imzfile <- tempfile(fileext=".imzML")

writeMSIData(mse_proc, file=imzfile)

list.files(imzfile)
## [1] "file146fcf34e674fe.fdata" "file146fcf34e674fe.ibd"  
## [3] "file146fcf34e674fe.imzML" "file146fcf34e674fe.pdata"

By default, the “.imzML” and “.ibd” file are bundled into a directory of the specified file name. Note that the featureData() and pixelData() are also written to tab-delimited files (if they contain more than the default metadata columns).

mse_re <- readMSIData(imzfile)

mse_re
## MSImagingExperiment with 26 features and 2048 spectra 
## spectraData(1): intensity
## featureData(3): mz, count, freq
## pixelData(8): x, y, run, ..., circleA, circleB, condition
## coord(2): x = 1...32, y = 1...32
## runNames(2): runA1, runB1
## experimentData(3): spectrumType, spectrumRepresentation, instrumentModel
## mass range:  440.6265 to 2105.8753 
## centroided: TRUE

When reading the data back in with readMSIData(), the bundled imzML directory is detected and the files are imported appropriately. The additional featureData() and pixelData() columns are imported as well.

9 Parallel computing using BiocParallel

All pre-processing methods and some statistical analysis methods in Cardinal can be executed in parallel using BiocParallel.

By default, no parallelization is used. This is for maximum stability and compatibility across all users.

9.1 Using BPPARAM

Any method that supports parallelization includes BPPARAM as an argument (see method documentation). The BPPARAM argument can be used to specify a parallel backend for the operation, such as SerialParam(), MulticoreParam(), SnowParam(), etc.

# run in parallel, rather than serially
mse_mean <- summarizeFeatures(mse, BPPARAM=MulticoreParam())

9.2 Backend types

Several parallelization backends are available, depending on OS:

  • SerialParam() creates a serial (non-parallel) backend. Use this to avoid potential issues caused by parallelization.

  • MulticoreParam() creates a multicore backend by forking the current R session. This is typically the fastest parallelization option, but is only available on macOS and Linux.

  • SnowParam() creates a SNOW backend by creating new R sessions via socket connections. This is typically slower than multicore, but is available on all platforms including Windows.

Use of MulticoreParam() will frequently improve speed on macOS and Linux dramatically. However, due to the extra overhead of SnowParam(), Windows users may prefer SerialParam() (no parallelization), depending on the size of the dataset.

9.3 Getting available backends

Available backends can be viewed with BiocParallel::registered().

BiocParallel::registered()
## $MulticoreParam
## class: MulticoreParam
##   bpisup: FALSE; bpnworkers: 4; bptasks: 0; bpjobname: BPJOB
##   bplog: FALSE; bpthreshold: INFO; bpstopOnError: TRUE
##   bpRNGseed: ; bptimeout: NA; bpprogressbar: FALSE
##   bpexportglobals: TRUE; bpexportvariables: FALSE; bpforceGC: FALSE
##   bpfallback: TRUE
##   bplogdir: NA
##   bpresultdir: NA
##   cluster type: FORK
## 
## $SnowParam
## class: SnowParam
##   bpisup: FALSE; bpnworkers: 4; bptasks: 0; bpjobname: BPJOB
##   bplog: FALSE; bpthreshold: INFO; bpstopOnError: TRUE
##   bpRNGseed: ; bptimeout: NA; bpprogressbar: FALSE
##   bpexportglobals: TRUE; bpexportvariables: TRUE; bpforceGC: FALSE
##   bpfallback: TRUE
##   bplogdir: NA
##   bpresultdir: NA
##   cluster type: SOCK
## 
## $SerialParam
## class: SerialParam
##   bpisup: FALSE; bpnworkers: 1; bptasks: 0; bpjobname: BPJOB
##   bplog: FALSE; bpthreshold: INFO; bpstopOnError: TRUE
##   bpRNGseed: ; bptimeout: NA; bpprogressbar: FALSE
##   bpexportglobals: FALSE; bpexportvariables: FALSE; bpforceGC: FALSE
##   bpfallback: FALSE
##   bplogdir: NA
##   bpresultdir: NA

The current backend used by Cardinal can be viewed with getCardinalBPPARAM():

getCardinalBPPARAM()
## NULL

The default is NULL, which means no parallelization.

9.4 Setting a parallel backend

A new default backend can be set for use with Cardinal by calling setCardinalBPPARAM().

# register a SNOW backend
setCardinalBPPARAM(SnowParam(workers=2, progressbar=TRUE))

getCardinalBPPARAM()
## class: SnowParam
##   bpisup: FALSE; bpnworkers: 2; bptasks: 2147483647; bpjobname: BPJOB
##   bplog: FALSE; bpthreshold: INFO; bpstopOnError: TRUE
##   bpRNGseed: ; bptimeout: NA; bpprogressbar: TRUE
##   bpexportglobals: TRUE; bpexportvariables: TRUE; bpforceGC: FALSE
##   bpfallback: TRUE
##   bplogdir: NA
##   bpresultdir: NA
##   cluster type: SOCK

See the BiocParallel package documentation for more details on available parallel backends.

# reset backend
setCardinalBPPARAM(NULL)

9.5 RNG and reproducibility

For methods that rely on random number generation to be reproducible when run in parallel, the RNG should be set to “L’Ecuyer-CMRG” to guarantee parallel-safe RNG streams.

RNGkind("L'Ecuyer-CMRG")
set.seed(1)

10 Statistical methods

Statistical methods are documented in a separate vignette. See vignette("Cardinal3-stats") to read about statistical methods in Cardinal.

More in-depth walkthroughs using real experimental data are available in the CardinalWorkflows package. You can install it using:

BiocManager::install("CardinalWorkflows")

Once installed, CardinalWorkflows can be loaded with library():

library(CardinalWorkflows)

11 Session information

sessionInfo()
## R version 4.4.0 (2024-04-24)
## Platform: x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
## Running under: Ubuntu 22.04.4 LTS
## 
## Matrix products: default
## BLAS:   /home/biocbuild/bbs-3.19-bioc/R/lib/libRblas.so 
## LAPACK: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/lapack/liblapack.so.3.10.0
## 
## locale:
##  [1] LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8       LC_NUMERIC=C              
##  [3] LC_TIME=en_GB              LC_COLLATE=C              
##  [5] LC_MONETARY=en_US.UTF-8    LC_MESSAGES=en_US.UTF-8   
##  [7] LC_PAPER=en_US.UTF-8       LC_NAME=C                 
##  [9] LC_ADDRESS=C               LC_TELEPHONE=C            
## [11] LC_MEASUREMENT=en_US.UTF-8 LC_IDENTIFICATION=C       
## 
## time zone: America/New_York
## tzcode source: system (glibc)
## 
## attached base packages:
## [1] stats4    stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods  
## [8] base     
## 
## other attached packages:
## [1] Cardinal_3.6.3      S4Vectors_0.42.0    BiocParallel_1.38.0
## [4] BiocGenerics_0.50.0 ProtGenerics_1.36.0 BiocStyle_2.32.1   
## 
## loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
##  [1] sass_0.4.9          tiff_0.1-12         bitops_1.0-7       
##  [4] jpeg_0.1-10         lattice_0.22-6      digest_0.6.36      
##  [7] magrittr_2.0.3      evaluate_0.24.0     grid_4.4.0         
## [10] bookdown_0.39       fftwtools_0.9-11    fastmap_1.2.0      
## [13] jsonlite_1.8.8      Matrix_1.7-0        ontologyIndex_2.12 
## [16] matter_2.6.2        DBI_1.2.3           biglm_0.9-3        
## [19] tinytex_0.51        BiocManager_1.30.23 codetools_0.2-20   
## [22] jquerylib_0.1.4     abind_1.4-5         cli_3.6.3          
## [25] rlang_1.1.4         CardinalIO_1.2.1    Biobase_2.64.0     
## [28] EBImage_4.46.0      cachem_1.1.0        yaml_2.3.8         
## [31] tools_4.4.0         parallel_4.4.0      locfit_1.5-9.10    
## [34] R6_2.5.1            png_0.1-8           lifecycle_1.0.4    
## [37] magick_2.8.3        htmlwidgets_1.6.4   irlba_2.3.5.1      
## [40] bslib_0.7.0         Rcpp_1.0.12         xfun_0.45          
## [43] highr_0.11          knitr_1.47          htmltools_0.5.8.1  
## [46] nlme_3.1-165        rmarkdown_2.27      compiler_4.4.0     
## [49] RCurl_1.98-1.14