Using Proteomics Skills

Using Proteomics Skills

This is the meta-skill that governs how all other proteomics skills are discovered, sequenced, and applied. Each specialized skill encodes the process an expert proteomics analyst would follow for one phase of work. This skill maps an incoming task to the right phase, routes to the corresponding skill, and keeps the overall analysis on track.

When a proteomics task arrives, identify the current phase and apply the corresponding skill. Do not improvise a phase that a dedicated skill already covers.

Skill Discovery

Route the task using the decision logic below:

• Don't know what the data is or which engine produced it yet? → reading-proteomics-data
• Have a matrix but unsure if samples/features are trustworthy? → performing-proteomics-quality-control
• Need to make samples comparable / stabilize variance? → normalizing-proteomics-data
• Missing values blocking a method that needs a complete matrix? → imputing-proteomics-data
• Suspect plate, instrument, or time-point bias? → correcting-proteomics-batch-effects
• Ready to test which proteins change between conditions? → performing-statistical-analysis
• Have a list of regulated proteins and need biological meaning? → interpreting-biological-results
• Need to synthesize results into a narrative or hypothesis? → formulating-biological-findings
• Writing or finalizing any analysis code? → applying-code-standards (cross-cutting)
• Implementing any of the above in Python? → analyzing-proteomics-data (use alphapepttools, cross-cutting)

If the request spans multiple phases (e.g. "run the full analysis"), follow the Lifecycle Sequence below in order.

Core Operating Behaviors

These behaviors apply at all times, across all skills. They are non-negotiable.

1. Surface Assumptions

Before implementing anything non-trivial, explicitly state your assumptions:

ASSUMPTIONS I'M MAKING:
1. [assumption about inputs — e.g. search engine, table type, intensity type]
2. [assumption about parameters or thresholds — e.g. completeness cutoff, FDR, fold-change]
3. [assumption about experimental design — e.g. groups, replicates, control vs. treatment]
→ Correct me now or I'll proceed with these.

Don't silently fill in ambiguous requirements. Surface uncertainty early — it's cheaper than rework.

2. Manage Confusion Actively

When you encounter inconsistencies, conflicting requirements, or unclear specifications:

1. STOP. Do not proceed with a guess.
2. Name the specific confusion.
3. Present the tradeoff or ask the clarifying question.
4. Wait for resolution before continuing.

Bad: Silently picking one interpretation and hoping it's right. Good: Naming the disagreement and asking which side wins.

3. Push Back When Warranted

You are not a yes-machine. When an approach has clear problems:

• Point out the issue directly
• Explain the concrete downside (quantify when possible)
• Propose an alternative
• Accept the human's decision if they override with full information

Sycophancy is a failure mode. Honest technical disagreement is more valuable than false agreement.

4. Enforce Simplicity

Your natural tendency is to overcomplicate. Actively resist it.

Before finishing any implementation, ask:

• Can this be done in fewer steps?
• Are these abstractions earning their complexity?
• Would a senior analyst look at this and say "why didn't you just..."?

Prefer the boring, obvious solution. Cleverness is expensive. For proteomics workflows this usually means reaching for alphapepttools rather than hand-rolling an equivalent.

5. Maintain Scope Discipline

Touch only what you're asked to touch.

Do NOT:

• "Clean up" code orthogonal to the task
• Refactor adjacent systems as a side effect
• Delete code or data that seems unused without explicit approval
• Silently re-run or alter an upstream analysis phase that wasn't requested

Your job is surgical precision, not unsolicited renovation.

6. Verify, Don't Assume

Every skill includes a verification step. A task is not complete until that step passes. "Looks right" is never sufficient — follow the verification procedure in the invoked skill, and check a phase's success criteria before advancing to the next.

Failure Modes to Avoid

These are orchestration-level failures. Method-level pitfalls (e.g. when to impute, normalize, or batch-correct) are owned by the individual skills.

• Advancing to the next phase without checking the current phase's success criteria.
• Re-implementing functionality that alphapepttools already provides.
• Drawing biological conclusions before the computational analysis is complete and verified.

Lifecycle Sequence

The typical end-to-end workflow runs in six sequential phases:

Phase 1: Reading proteomics data

Read search engine outputs (e.g., PSM and protein tables).

• Skill: reading-proteomics-data

Phase 2: Controlling data quality

Check technical quality (e.g., feature counts, missing values) and filter out decoys, outlier samples, or low-evidence features.

• Skill: performing-proteomics-quality-control

Phase 3: Preprocessing data

Apply data transformations including normalization, imputation, or batch correction.

• Skills: normalizing-proteomics-data, imputing-proteomics-data, correcting-proteomics-batch-effects

Phase 4: Performing statistical analysis

Identify significant changes between conditions using differential expression analysis to obtain p-values, fold-changes, volcano plots, and more.

• Skill: performing-statistical-analysis

Phase 5: Interpreting biological results

Translate regulated protein lists into biological pathways (e.g., Over-Representation Analysis (ORA), Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA)).

• Skill: interpreting-biological-results

Phase 6: Formulating biological findings

Synthesize results into findings to understand potential connections between proteins and their roles in biological mechanisms or disease genesis.

• Skill: formulating-biological-findings

The two cross-cutting skills apply throughout: analyzing-proteomics-data (implement workflows with alphapepttools) and applying-code-standards (code quality for reproducible analysis).

Instructions

1. Determine Phase: Identify where the user stands in their analysis: at the beginning or in the middle. Use Skill Discovery to route to the right skill.
2. Strategy Selection: Think through the analysis workflow and use the knowledge in the specific skill for each phase.
3. Plan: Plan each step considering the study context and provided source data. Outline the strategy and parameters you would use for each step. Define success criteria for each phase, which Claude must verify before moving to the next phase.
4. Verify: Ensure the plan includes the following sequence. Copy the following checklist into the chat to track analysis progress:

Analysis Progress:
- [ ] Phase 1: Reading proteomics data
- [ ] Phase 2: Controlling data quality
- [ ] Phase 3: Preprocessing data: Normalizing, Imputing, Batch effects
- [ ] Phase 4: Performing statistical analysis
- [ ] Phase 5: Interpreting biological results
- [ ] Phase 6: Formulating biological findings

Example Analysis Plan

1. Reading proteomics data: Loading pg_matrix.tsv.

• Success Criteria: Engine is identified as DIA-NN; columns are mapped to standardized names; decoys are removed; the resulting matrix has samples as rows and numeric intensities as values.

1. Controlling data quality: Filter out proteins with fewer than 2 peptides. Compute per-sample total intensity and feature count; flag and remove MAD-based outliers (N = 3) on both metrics. Then apply a 70% feature completeness threshold (bulk tissue default).

• Success Criteria: All features with less than 70% completeness are removed

1. Preprocessing data:

• Normalization: Log2-transform intensities (treating zeros as NA). Assess normalization need by computing correlation between PC1 and log10(total intensity per sample). If correlation is strong, apply median centering.

Evaluate with Pooled Median Absolute Deviation (PMAD)

• Imputation: Plot feature intensity versus missingness rate to classify the dominant pattern (MNAR vs. MCAR). If MNAR-dominant, apply MinProb imputation; if MCAR-dominant, apply BPCA. Validate by comparing intensity distributions

before and after imputation and checking PCA stability via Procrustes analysis.

• Success Criteria: PMAD decreases & PC–intensity correlation should drop after normalization; imputed value distribution does not create artificial modes; PCA structure remains stable after imputation; no NaN values remain.

1. Performing statistical analysis: Define WT as control and KO as treatment.

Apply a two-sided t-test (moderated via limma's eBayes since fewer than 5 replicates per group) to compute log2 fold-changes and raw p-values. Apply Benjamini-Hochberg correction to obtain q-values. Mark proteins as significant at q-value 1. Generate a volcano plot and a z-score-normalized heatmap of significant proteins with hierarchical clustering.

• Success Criteria: A results table (resultsstatisticalanalysis.tsv) exists with columns proteingroup, genename, log2foldchange, pvalue, -log10pvalue, qvalue, issignificant. Heatmap shows replicates clustering by condition.

Source & license

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

• Author: MannLabs
• Source: MannLabs/proteomics-agent-skills
• License: Apache-2.0

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