amPEPpy is a Python 3 application that implements a random forest classifier for predicting antimicrobial peptide sequences using the Distribution descriptor set from the Global Protein Sequence Descriptors. amPEPpy has improved portability, increased accuracy relative to similar methods, and includes utilities for easily training and optimizing random forest classifiers on novel training data.

• Install
• Quickstart tutorial
  • Training random forest classifier
  • Classifying sequences using the trained classifier
• Optimizing the random forest classifier, calculating feature importance, and feature selection
  • Optimizing the number of decision trees within the random forest classifier
  • Feature importance
  • Excluding features from training and classifiying
• Citing
• Appendix
  • Global options
  • Train
  • Predict

1. Download amPEPpy and training data using the below bash command or the zip link:

git clone https://github.com/tlawrence3/amPEPpy.git

2. Change into the amPEPpy directory

cd amPEPpy

3. We recommend using anaconda and conda enviroments for installing and using amPEPpy. For MacOSX and Linux users we recommend installing the command line tools for anaconda. Windows users don't have this option and will need to open a powershell from the anaconda GUI to install and use amPEPpy. The following commands will create a conda environment with all the required packages and activate it.

conda create -n amPEP python=3.8 pandas numpy biopython scikit-learn
conda activate amPEP

If anaconda is unavailable for your system or you don't want to install it you can still install amPEPpy using pip with the command below:

pip install .

4. Now we can install amPEPpy and test the installation with the below commands:

python setup.py install
ampep -h

Here are minimal steps required to get amPEPpy up and running to classify protein sequences as AMP or nonAMP

Now that amPEPpy is installed we need to train the machine-learning algorithm. To do this we need a positive dataset (AMP sequences) and a negative dataset (nonAMP) sequences in fasta format. These are located in the training_data folder.

To train the random forest classifier with the same settings as the manuscript use the below command.

ampep train -p training_data/M_model_train_AMP_sequence.numbered.fasta -n training_data/M_model_train_nonAMP_sequence.numbered.proplen.subsample.fasta --seed 2012

This should create a file named amPEP.model which contains the saved random forest classifier. The -p flag is the path to your fasta file containing AMP sequences, -n flag is the path to a fasta file containing nonAMP sequences, and --seed may be provided for reproducibility and was set to 2012 for all of the analyses for the manuscript. The model described in the manuscript is available in the pretrained_models directory.

Use the below command to classify amino acid sequences in fasta format using the trained random forest. As an example we will use our positive training data.

ampep predict -m amPEP.model -i training_data/M_model_train_AMP_sequence.numbered.fasta -o results.tsv --seed 2012

This should result in a file named results.tsv that contains the classification results for the positive dataset. The -m flag is the path to the model file created during training, -i flag is the path to a fasta file containing amino acid sequences to classifier, and the -o flag.

After finishing the quickstart tutorial the steps belows will take you through the steps we used to optimize our random forest classifier. These steps can be used to optimize a new classifier on novel training data. In the example below we will use the training data from our publication, however, if you are interested in training on a larger dataset see the ADAPTABLE database.

First we need to determine the number of decision trees produces the lowest out-of-bag error. The below command will calculate out-of-bag error for random forest classifiers containing between 23 and 175 decision trees saving the results to oob_error_results.tsv.

ampep train --test-trees --min-trees 23 --max-trees 175 \ 
-p training_data/M_model_train_AMP_sequence.numbered.fasta \
-n training_data/M_model_train_nonAMP_sequence.numbered.proplen.subsample.fasta \
--seed 2012 > oob_error_results.tsv

After running this command you should have file in the current directory named oob_error_results.tsv. This file contains tab-separated values for each random forest classifier's out-of-bag error. We recommend selecting the smallest number of estimators that results in the lowest out-of-bag error. Below is an example of the oob_error_results.tsv file:

n_estimators    oob_error
23      0.19033047735618114
24      0.1900244798041616
25      0.19033047735618114
26      0.18925948592411257
27      0.18665850673194617

We calculate a feature's importance by change in out-of-bag accuracy between a random forest classifier trained with all features and one trained with the feature removed. A positive value indicates that the classifier performs better when the feature is included and a negative value indicates the classifer performs better when the feature is removed. The below command will calculate the importance of each feature and write the results to feature.importances.dropcol.oob.csv.

ampep train --feature-importance --num-trees \
-p training_data/M_model_train_AMP_sequence.numbered.fasta \
-n training_data/M_model_train_nonAMP_sequence.numbered.proplen.subsample.fasta \
--seed 2012

Below is an example of the results contained in feature.importances.dropcol.oob.csv after running the above command:

Feature,Importance
normalized.van.der.waals.2.25,0.008720930232558155
polarity.2.50,0.008108935128518957
hydrophobicity.1.100,0.00795593635250913
polarizability.1.25,0.0
polarizability.1.0,-0.0009179926560587415

The result file contains two columns Feature which is the name of the feature from the Distribution descriptor set from the Global Protein Sequence Descriptors and the second column is the difference in the out-of-bag accuracy between a random forest classifier trained with all features and one trained with this feature removed.

Based on the feature importance analysis above it appears that removing the polarizability.1.0 feature actually improved the performance of the random forest classifier. If we want to remove this featue from training and classifying we can do this using the --drop-features option. This option is expecting a text file with one feature per line that will be removed during training and classification. Below is an example of the file required by the --drop-features option that will remove two features:

polarizability.1.25
polarizability.1.0

If the above example file was named features.remove.txt here is the command that will train the random forest classifier removing these features:

ampep train -p training_data/M_model_train_AMP_sequence.numbered.fasta \
-n training_data/M_model_train_nonAMP_sequence.numbered.proplen.subsample.fasta \ 
--drop-features features.remove.txt --seed 2012

Once the model is trained with these features removed and we want to use it to classify sequences we need to provide the predict command with the -drop-features option. Below is an example command for predicting AMP sequences with the above features removed.

ampep predict -m amPEP.model -i training_data/M_model_train_AMP_sequence.numbered.fasta --drop-features features.remove.txt -o results.tsv --seed 2012

-v --version Show program's version number and exit

-h --help Print help message and exit

--seed Seed for random processes. This allows reproducibility of random forest training. Default is a random seed number.

-t --num-processes Number of processor cores to use for training and classification. Default is the number of system cores reported by the OS

-d --drop-features Text file containing list of features to drop during random forest training and classification. File must have one feature per line

-p --positive Fasta file containing amino acid sequences of known antimicrobial peptides.

-n --negative Fasta file containing amino acid sequences of non-antimicrobial peptides.

--test-trees Test accuracy of random forest classifier using different numbers of classifiers evaluted using out of bag error. --min-trees and --max-trees control the range of classifiers tested. Results are printed to stdout.

--min-trees Minimum number of classifiers within random forest classifier when evaluating out of bag error. Default is 23.

--max-trees Minimum number of classifiers within random forest classifier when evaluating out of bag error. Default is 175.

--num-trees Number of classifers used to train random forest classifier. Default is 160 which was shown to produce the lowest out of bag error on training data.

--feature-importance Test feature importance using the drop feature method. Results are written to a csv file in the current directory.

-i --input-sequences Fasta file containing amino acid sequences to be classified.

-o --output-file Output file to save classification results. Default is stdout.

-m --model Random forest model to use for classification. Random forest model is trained and outputted using the train module. Default is amPEP.model in the current directory.