MultiAssayExperiment-class {MultiAssayExperiment} | R Documentation

## An integrative multi-assay class for experiment data

### Description

The `MultiAssayExperiment` class can be used to manage results of diverse assays on a collection of specimen. Currently, the class can handle assays that are organized instances of `SummarizedExperiment`, `ExpressionSet`, `matrix`, `RaggedExperiment` (inherits from `GRangesList`), and `RangedVcfStack`. Create new `MultiAssayExperiment` instances with the homonymous constructor, minimally with the argument `ExperimentList`, potentially also with the arguments `colData` (see section below) and `sampleMap`.

### Usage

    ## S4 method for signature 'MultiAssayExperiment'
    show(object)

    ## S4 method for signature 'MultiAssayExperiment'
    length(x)

    ## S4 method for signature 'MultiAssayExperiment'
    names(x)

    ## S4 method for signature 'MultiAssayExperiment'
    updateObject(object, ..., verbose = FALSE)

    ## S4 method for signature 'MultiAssayExperiment'
    exportClass(
      object,
      dir = tempdir(),
      fmt,
      ext,
      match = FALSE,
      verbose = TRUE,
      ...
    )

    ## S4 method for signature 'MultiAssayExperiment'
    dimnames(x)

    ## S4 method for signature 'MultiAssayExperiment'
    c(x, ..., sampleMap = NULL, mapFrom = NULL)

    ## S4 method for signature 'MultiAssayExperiment'
    assays(x, ..., withDimnames = TRUE)

    ## S4 method for signature 'MultiAssayExperiment,missing'
    assay(x, i, ...)

    ## S4 method for signature 'MultiAssayExperiment,numeric'
    assay(x, i, ...)

    ## S4 method for signature 'MultiAssayExperiment,character'
    assay(x, i, ...)

### Arguments

`object` | A `MultiAssayExperiment` object
`x` | A `MultiAssayExperiment` object
`...` | Additional arguments for supporting functions. See details.
`verbose` | logical (default FALSE) whether to print extra messages
`dir` | character(1) A directory for saving exported data (default: 'tempdir()')
`fmt` | character(1) or function() Either a format character atomic as supported by ‘write.table' either (’csv', or 'tsv') or a function whose first two arguments are 'object to save' and 'file location'
`ext` | character(1) A file extension supported by the format argument
`match` | logical(1) Whether to coerce the current object to a 'MatchedAssayExperiment' object (default: FALSE)
`sampleMap` | `c` method: a `sampleMap` `list` or `DataFrame` to guide merge
`mapFrom` | Either a `logical`, `character`, or `integer` vector indicating the experiment(s) that have an identical colname order as the experiment input(s)
`withDimnames` | logical (default TRUE) whether to return dimension names included in the object
`i` | An integer or character scalar indicating the assay to return

### Details

The dots (`...`) argument allows the user to specify additional arguments in several instances.

- subsetting [: additional arguments sent to findOverlaps.

- mergeReplicates: used to specify arguments for the `simplify` functional argument

- assay: may contain withDimnames, which is forwarded to assays

- combining c: compatible `MultiAssayExperiment` classes passed on to the ExperimentList constructor, can be a `list`, List, or a series of named arguments. See the examples below.

### Value

A `MultiAssayExperiment` object

### Methods (by generic)

- `show`: Show method for a `MultiAssayExperiment`

- `length`: Get the length of ExperimentList

- `names`: Get the names of the ExperimentList

- `updateObject`: Update old serialized MultiAssayExperiment objects to new API

- `exportClass`: Export data from class to a series of text files

- `dimnames`: Get the dimension names for a `MultiAssayExperiment` object

- `c`: Add a supported data class to the `ExperimentList`

- `assays`: Obtain a `SimpleList` of assay data for all available experiments in the object

- `assay`: Convenience function for extracting the assay of the first element (default) in the `ExperimentList`. A `numeric` or `character` index can also be provided

### Slots

`ExperimentList`

  A `ExperimentList` class object for each assay dataset

`colData`

  A `DataFrame` of all clinical/specimen data available across experiments

`sampleMap`

  A `DataFrame` of translatable identifiers of samples and participants

`metadata`

  Additional data describing the `MultiAssayExperiment` object

`drops`

  A metadata `list` of dropped information

### colData

The `colData` slot is a collection of primary specimen data valid across all experiments. This slot is strictly of class `DataFrame` but arguments for the constructor function allow arguments to be of class `data.frame` and subsequently coerced.

### ExperimentList

The `ExperimentList` slot is designed to contain results from each experiment/assay. It contains a SimpleList.

### sampleMap

The `sampleMap` contains a `DataFrame` of translatable identifiers of samples and participants or biological units. Standard column names of the sampleMap are "assay", "primary", and "colname".

### See Also

MultiAssayExperiment-methods for slot modifying methods MultiAssayExperiment API

### Examples

    example("MultiAssayExperiment")

    ## Subsetting
    # Rows (i) Rows/Features in each experiment
    mae[1, , ]
    mae[c(TRUE, FALSE), , ]

    # Columns (j) Rows in colData
    mae[, rownames(colData(mae))[3:2],  ]

    # Assays (k)
    mae[, , "Affy"]

    ## Complete cases (returns logical vector)
    completes <- complete.cases(mae)
    compMAE <- mae[, completes, ]
    compMAE
    colData(compMAE)

    example("MultiAssayExperiment")

    ## Add an experiment
    test1 <- mae[[1L]]
    colnames(test1) <- rownames(colData(mae))

    ## Combine current MultiAssayExperiment with additional experiment
    ## (no sampleMap)
    c(mae, newExperiment = test1)

    test2 <- mae[[3L]]
    c(mae, newExp = test2, mapFrom = 3L)

[Package MultiAssayExperiment version 1.12.6 Index]