Microbiome Intervention Analysis with Transfer Functions and Mirror Statistics

Abstract

Microbiome interventions provide valuable data about microbial ecosystem structure and dynamics. Despite their ubiquity in microbiome research, few rigorous data analysis approaches are available. In this study, we extend transfer function-based intervention analysis to the microbiome setting, drawing from advances in statistical learning and selective inference. Our proposal supports the simulation of hypothetical intervention trajectories and False Discovery Rate-guaranteed selection of significantly perturbed taxa. We explore the properties of our approach through simulation and re-analyze three contrasting microbiome studies. An R package, mbtransfer, is available at https://go.wisc.edu/crj6k6. Notebooks to reproduce the simulation and case studies can be found at https://go.wisc.edu/dxuibh and https://go.wisc.edu/emxv33.