LipidXplorer Installation

Note: The current package of LipidXplorer is compatible with Microsoft Windows only. A Linux version has to be compiled first. This should be not a big problem. If anyone is interested, please write me.

Installation for Windows

LipidXplorer 32Bit

• Python 2.6 here !Note! Python version has to be >= 2.6.6
• wxPython 2.8 (for Python 2.6) here
• numPy (for Python 2.6) here

LipidXplorer 64Bit

• Python 2.7 here
• wxPython 2.8 (for Python 2.7) here
• install Python 2.7 and wxPython 2.8
• download the lipidxplorer third party dependencies here
  • unzip it to a location of your choice
  • double click on install_dependencies.py
  • after the installation finished you can delete the unzipped folder - it is not needed any longer
  • if this fails, you can manually install the dependencies:
    • download pip: get-pip.py
    • install pip from cmd line with Python get-pip.py
    • download numPy (for Python 2.7 64Bit): Since Numpy is officially not supported for 64Bit there is an unofficial version here which can be used and installed. Please select numpy-<version>+mkl-cp27-none-win_amd64.whl where <version> is the newest.
    • open the command line window:
      • move your mouse cursor over the window in which you saved the numpy[...].whl file
      • do a right mouse click while holding down the SHIFT key
      • in the menu select Open command window here
    • install numPy from command line and type: c:\Python27\scripts\pip.exe install numpy-<version>-win_amd64.whl
    • insert the correct version number for <version>
    • lxml (for Python 2.7 64 Bit): lxml is needed for reading mzML files with Python 2.7. Here is a site where you can download it for your system. Please select lxml‑<version>‑cp27‑none‑win_amd64.whl
    • save it in the same folder as the numpy file
    • install lxml from command line: c:\Python27\scripts\pip.exe install lxml-<version>-win_amd64.whl

The requirements for Linux are the same. However, the links above are only for the Windows version. For Linux, please check out the repositories of your distribution. Further, the Python C extensions have to be build separately on Linux. Please contact me (Email) for further information.

Download link

LipidXplorer can be downloaded here. Unzip it and store the folder at any place you prefer. LipidXplorer is started with a double click on "LipidXplorer.py". In the "mfql" folder you find example queries taken from the LipidXplorer paper[1].

Optional requirements

File conversion

LipidXplorer supports the generic file formats *.mzML and *.mzXML. Raw spectra as they are produced by the mass spectrometer have to be converted into one of those formats before they can be used with LipidXplorer. The recommended converter is MSConvert from the ProteoWizard package. It supports the formats of the main mass spectrometer vendors and is maintained by a team of developers. I comes with an easy-to-use graphical user interface.

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[1] Herzog, R., Schwudke, D., Schuhmann, K., Sampaio, J.L., Bornstein, S.R., Schroeder, M., and Shevchenko, A. 2011. A novel informatics concept for high-throughput shotgun lipidomics based on the molecular fragmentation query language. Genome Biol 12(1): R8.