MXP: Modular eXpandable framework for building bioinformatics Pipelines

Author(s): Mikhail Kovtun, Konstantin Arbeev, Anatoliy Yashin, Igor Akushevich

Pipelines are a natural tool in bioinformatics applications. Virtually any meaningful processing of biological data involves the execution of multiple software tools, and this execution must be arranged in a coherent manner. Many tools for the building of pipelines were developed over time and used to facilitate work with increasing volume of bioinformatics data. Here we present a flexible and expandable framework for building pipelines, MXP, which we hope will find its own niche in bioinformatics applications. We developed MXP and tested it on various tasks in our organization, primarily for building pipelines for GWAS (Genome-Wide Association Studies) and post-GWAS analysis. It was proven to be sufficiently flexible and useful. MXP implements a number of novel features which, from our point of view, make it to be more suitable and more convenient for building bioinformatics pipelines.