Sdrf:review

SDRF Review Workflow

You are performing a comprehensive quality review of an SDRF file — like a peer reviewer would for a PRIDE submission or a community annotation PR.

Step 1: Load Context

1. Read the SDRF content
2. Detect templates from metadata or content
3. If PXD available → fetch project context + publication:

``text mcp PRIDE → get_project_details(project_accession="PXD######") Extract PMID → mcp PubMed → get_article_metadata([pmid]) ``

1. If GitHub PR → read the diff to understand what changed

Step 2: Run Full Validation (sdrf-validate workflow)

Apply the complete validation checklist from the sdrf-validate skill. Read spec/sdrf-proteomics/TERMS.tsv for column definitions and spec/sdrf-proteomics/sdrf-templates/templates.yaml for template metadata. Collect all errors and warnings.

Step 3: Cross-Reference with Publication

If a publication is available:

• Does the sample count in SDRF match the paper?
• Are all conditions from the paper represented?
• Do the instruments match?
• Are demographics (age, sex) consistent with the paper?
• Is characteristics[developmental stage] supported by the cohort description even if age is reported only at group level?
• Are tissue types correctly annotated?

When Europe PMC full text is available, do not inspect raw XML directly. First run: python scripts/europepmc_fulltext.py PMC_ID --section methods --section results --section discussion --format text or use --format json when structured links, captions, or accession detection will help the review.

Flag any discrepancies:

DISCREPANCY: Paper says "24 patients" but SDRF has 20 unique source names.
DISCREPANCY: Paper mentions "hippocampus and temporal cortex" but SDRF only has "brain".

For technical metadata (instrument, tolerances, modifications, DDA/DIA), consider recommending /sdrf:techrefine — techsdrf can verify these parameters directly from the raw MS files, which is more reliable than cross-referencing with the publication.

Conflict Resolution

When SDRF and paper/PRIDE disagree:

• Sample count mismatch: Check if some samples were excluded (QC failure, outliers). Paper may report enrolled patients while SDRF has analyzable samples. Check supplementary tables.
• Instrument mismatch: PRIDE might say "Q Exactive" while paper says "Q Exactive HF". The paper is usually more specific — update SDRF to match the paper's instrument model.
• Tissue specificity: If paper says "hippocampus" but SDRF says "brain", update SDRF to the more specific term from the paper.
• Demographic mismatch: If paper has a demographics table, prioritize it. SDRF might have been filled from incomplete metadata.
• Cohort-only demographics: If the paper reports only cohort summaries, developmental stage may still be supportable, but do not force per-sample age, sex, or ethnicity without an individual-level mapping table.
• File count mismatch: Some files in PRIDE may be non-raw (search results, FASTA, etc.). Compare only raw files.

Step 4: Cross-Reference with PRIDE

If a PXD accession is available:

• Do file names in SDRF match files in PRIDE?

``text mcp PRIDE → get_project_files(project_accession="PXD######") ` REST fallback: `text GET https://www.ebi.ac.uk/pride/ws/archive/v3/projects/PXD######/files/all ``

• Does the organism match?
• Does the instrument match?
• Are all raw files accounted for?

If PRIDE exposes no raw files and the dataset is hosted by MassIVE, use the deterministic helper:

python -m tools massive-files PXD016117 --mode raw --format tsv

Treat this as a fallback for reconstructing defensible comment[data file] values when the repository metadata is incomplete.

Step 5: Design Analysis

Analyze the experimental design:

• Are factor values properly defined?
• Is the comparison clear?
• Are replicates adequate?
• Are there potential batch effects? (instrument × condition confounding)
• Are there confounders? (age × disease, sex × treatment)

Step 6: Quality Score

Calculate and present an overall quality score:

# SDRF Quality Review: PXD012345
# Date: [date]
# Templates: ms-proteomics, human, clinical-metadata

## Quality Score: 78/100

### Breakdown:
  Completeness:     85/100  ████████░░
  Specificity:      70/100  ███████░░░
  Consistency:      90/100  █████████░
  Standards:        65/100  ██████░░░░
  Design Clarity:   80/100  ████████░░

### Errors Found: 3
  1. [ERROR] Row 12: UNIMOD:21 used for Acetyl (should be UNIMOD:1)
  2. [ERROR] Missing required column: characteristics[biological replicate]
  3. [ERROR] "cancer" is too generic — specify cancer subtype

### Warnings: 5
  1. [WARN] Case inconsistency in characteristics[sex]: "Male" vs "male"
  2. [WARN] Not using latest template version (v1.0.0 → v1.1.0 available)
  3. [WARN] Missing recommended column: characteristics[cell type]
  4. [WARN] Age format "58 years" should be "58Y"
  5. [WARN] Missing SDRF metadata columns (comment[sdrf version])

### Improvements Suggested: 3
  1. [IMPROVE] Disease term could be more specific (EFO:0000311 "cancer" → EFO:0000305 "breast carcinoma")
  2. [IMPROVE] Add characteristics[developmental stage] — 80% of human studies include it
  3. [IMPROVE] Consider adding comment[sdrf annotation tool] for provenance

### Cross-Reference:
  Publication match:  ✓ Sample count matches paper
  PRIDE file match:   ✓ All 240 raw files present
  Instrument match:   ✓ Q Exactive HF confirmed

### Verdict: NEEDS MINOR FIXES
  Fix the 3 errors and this SDRF is ready for submission.

Step 7: Actionable Next Steps

Provide clear next steps:

1. List fixes in priority order
2. Offer to auto-fix what can be auto-fixed (/sdrf:fix)
3. Identify what needs human input (e.g., missing demographics)
4. Suggest running final validation after fixes
5. If the SDRF is for a ProteomeXchange dataset and the verdict is VALID or NEEDS MINOR FIXES:

suggest contributing the annotation via /sdrf:contribute {PXD} to the sdrf-annotated-datasets community repository

Source & license

This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: bigbio
• Source: bigbio/sdrf-skills
• License: MIT
• Homepage: https://sdrf.quantms.org

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.