Automated Interpretation of Metabolic Capacity from Complete Genomes Using KEGG Modules

The KEGG pathway maps are widely used as a reference dataset for biological interpretation of genome sequence data. The KEGG modules are tighter functional units often corresponding to subpathways in the KEGG pathway maps and are designed for better automation of genome interpretation. Each KEGG module is represented by a logical expression of KEGG Orthology (KO) identifiers (K numbers) enabling automatic evaluation of the completeness of gene sets in the genome. Here we focus on metabolic functions and show how KEGG modules and related reaction modules are utilized for improving annotation and interpretation. We also introduce the BlastKOALA server that we recently released for annotation and subsequent KEGG Mapper analyses of user’s genome sequence data.