Visual Quality Control and Interpretation

The hardware and bandwidth for this mirror is donated by dogado GmbH, the Webhosting and Full Service-Cloud Provider. Check out our Wordpress Tutorial.
If you wish to report a bug, or if you are interested in having us mirror your free-software or open-source project, please feel free to contact us at mirror[@]dogado.de.

Why visualise?

Numbers summarise; plots reveal. A p-value tells you something is significant, but a volcano plot shows you whether that significance is driven by a few outliers or a robust pattern. Always plot your data before trusting the statistics.

This vignette shows what “good” and “bad” look like for each diagnostic plot.

Creating example datasets

We’ll create two datasets: one well-behaved, one problematic.

set.seed(123)

# Good data: clean separation, no outliers, balanced
# Using 10 reps and 3-fold changes for good power
make_good_data <- function() {
  n_peptides <- 40
  n_reps <- 10

  peptides <- paste0("PEP_", sprintf("%03d", 1:n_peptides))
  genes <- paste0("GENE_", LETTERS[((1:n_peptides - 1) %% 26) + 1])
  diff_peptides <- peptides[1:12]  # 30% differential

  sim_data <- expand.grid(
    peptide = peptides,
    treatment = c("ctrl", "trt"),
    bio_rep = 1:n_reps,
    stringsAsFactors = FALSE
  ) %>%
    mutate(
      gene_id = genes[match(peptide, peptides)],
      base = rep(rgamma(n_peptides, shape = 8, rate = 0.8), each = 2 * n_reps),
      effect = ifelse(peptide %in% diff_peptides & treatment == "trt",
                      sample(c(0.33, 3), length(diff_peptides) * n_reps, replace = TRUE),
                      1),
      value = rgamma(n(), shape = 20, rate = 20 / (base * effect))
    ) %>%
    select(peptide, gene_id, treatment, bio_rep, value)

  temp_file <- tempfile(fileext = ".csv")
  write.csv(sim_data, temp_file, row.names = FALSE)

  read_pepdiff(temp_file, id = "peptide", gene = "gene_id",
               value = "value", factors = "treatment", replicate = "bio_rep")
}

good_data <- make_good_data()

# Problematic data: outlier sample, batch effect, systematic missingness
make_bad_data <- function() {
  n_peptides <- 40
  n_reps <- 10

  peptides <- paste0("PEP_", sprintf("%03d", 1:n_peptides))
  genes <- paste0("GENE_", LETTERS[((1:n_peptides - 1) %% 26) + 1])

  sim_data <- expand.grid(
    peptide = peptides,
    treatment = c("ctrl", "trt"),
    bio_rep = 1:n_reps,
    stringsAsFactors = FALSE
  ) %>%
    mutate(
      gene_id = genes[match(peptide, peptides)],
      base = rep(rgamma(n_peptides, shape = 5, rate = 0.5), each = 2 * n_reps),
      # Outlier: one control sample has 3x higher values
      batch_effect = ifelse(treatment == "ctrl" & bio_rep == 1, 3, 1),
      value = rgamma(n(), shape = 10, rate = 10 / (base * batch_effect))
    ) %>%
    select(peptide, gene_id, treatment, bio_rep, value)

  # Add systematic missingness: low-abundance peptides missing in treatment
  low_abundance <- peptides[31:40]
  sim_data <- sim_data %>%
    mutate(value = ifelse(peptide %in% low_abundance & treatment == "trt" & runif(n()) < 0.7,
                          NA, value))

  temp_file <- tempfile(fileext = ".csv")
  write.csv(sim_data, temp_file, row.names = FALSE)

  read_pepdiff(temp_file, id = "peptide", gene = "gene_id",
               value = "value", factors = "treatment", replicate = "bio_rep")
}

bad_data <- make_bad_data()

Data-level diagnostics

PCA plot

PCA (Principal Component Analysis) projects your high-dimensional data onto 2D. Samples that are similar cluster together.

Good PCA:

plot_pca_simple(good_data)

Replicates from the same condition cluster together
Groups are separated (if there’s a biological effect)
No wild outliers

Problematic PCA:

plot_pca_simple(bad_data)

Warning signs: - Outlier sample: One point far from its group suggests a sample quality issue - No separation: If groups overlap completely, your treatment may have no effect (or the effect is too small to detect) - Unexpected clustering: Samples clustering by batch/run date instead of treatment suggests a batch effect

What to do: - Investigate outliers - check sample prep notes, consider excluding - If batch effects dominate, you may need to include batch in your model or use batch correction

Distribution plots

plot_distributions_simple(good_data)

What to look for: Similar shapes and locations across samples. Proteomics data is typically right-skewed - that’s expected.

plot_distributions_simple(bad_data)

Warning signs: - Shifted distributions: One sample systematically higher/lower suggests normalisation issues - Different shapes: One sample much more spread out suggests technical problems - Bimodal distributions: May indicate a mixture of populations

What to do: - Check if data was normalised appropriately - Investigate shifted samples for technical issues - Consider whether the shifted sample should be excluded

Missingness plot

plot_missingness_simple(good_data)

Good missingness: Random scatter, or no missing values at all. Missing values occur independently of abundance or condition.

plot_missingness_simple(bad_data)

Warning signs: - MNAR pattern: Low-abundance peptides preferentially missing. This is “missing not at random” - the value is missing because it’s low (below detection limit). - Condition-specific missingness: Peptides missing only in treatment (or only in control) may indicate true biological absence, or may be technical artifacts.

What to do: - MNAR is common in proteomics and difficult to handle properly - Peptides with high missingness often can’t be reliably analysed - pepdiff doesn’t impute - if data is missing, the peptide may be excluded from analysis - See peppwR for understanding missingness patterns and power implications

Results-level diagnostics

Let’s run analyses on both datasets:

good_results <- compare(good_data, compare = "treatment", ref = "ctrl")
bad_results <- compare(bad_data, compare = "treatment", ref = "ctrl")

Volcano plot

The volcano plot shows effect size (fold change) vs statistical significance. It’s the most informative single plot for differential abundance results.

Good volcano:

plot_volcano_new(good_results)

Symmetric spread: Roughly equal up and down regulation
Significant hits at edges: Large fold changes with low p-values
Cloud in centre: Most peptides show small, non-significant changes

Problematic volcano:

plot_volcano_new(bad_results)

Warning signs: - Asymmetric: All significant hits in one direction may indicate a global shift (normalisation problem) rather than true differential expression - Vertical stripe at FC=1: Many significant hits with tiny fold changes suggests p-value inflation - Everything significant: Likely a technical artifact or analysis error

P-value histogram

The p-value histogram reveals whether your statistical assumptions are met.

Understanding the shapes:

Under the null hypothesis (no true effects), p-values are uniformly distributed - every value from 0 to 1 is equally likely. When true effects exist, those peptides get pulled toward 0, creating a spike.

Good p-value histogram:

plot_pvalue_histogram(good_results)

Uniform base + spike near 0: This is ideal. The uniform part represents true nulls, the spike represents true positives.
The height of the spike relative to the uniform part tells you roughly what fraction of peptides have real effects.

Problematic p-value histogram:

plot_pvalue_histogram(bad_results)

Warning signs: - U-shape (spikes at both 0 and 1): P-value inflation. Your test is anti-conservative - it’s giving too many small AND too many large p-values. Often indicates violated assumptions. - Spike at 1 only: Test is too conservative. May happen with very small sample sizes. - Completely uniform: No signal at all. Either no true effects, or not enough power to detect them.

Fold change distribution

plot_fc_distribution_new(good_results)

Good: Centred near zero (log2 scale), roughly symmetric. Most peptides don’t change much.

plot_fc_distribution_new(bad_results)

Warning signs: - Systematic shift: Distribution centred away from zero suggests a global offset (normalisation issue) - Bimodal: Two peaks may indicate batch effects or distinct populations

Individual plot functions

The plot() method gives you a multi-panel grid. For individual plots:

Data-level: - plot_pca_simple(data) - PCA - plot_distributions_simple(data) - Abundance distributions - plot_missingness_simple(data) - Missingness patterns

Results-level: - plot_volcano_new(results) - Volcano plot - plot_pvalue_histogram(results) - P-value histogram - plot_fc_distribution_new(results) - Fold change distribution

Exporting for publication

All plots are ggplot2 objects, so you can customise and save them:

p <- plot_volcano_new(good_results) +
  labs(title = "Treatment vs Control") +
  theme_minimal(base_size = 14)

ggsave("volcano.pdf", p, width = 6, height = 5)

You can also modify themes, colours, and labels:

plot_volcano_new(good_results) +
  theme_classic() +
  labs(title = "My Custom Volcano Plot")

Summary: what to check

Before analysis: 1. PCA - do replicates cluster? Any outliers? 2. Distributions - similar across samples? 3. Missingness - random or systematic?

After analysis: 1. Volcano - symmetric? Hits make sense? 2. P-value histogram - uniform + spike, or something wrong? 3. Fold changes - centred at zero?

If something looks off, investigate before trusting the statistics. Plots often reveal problems that summary numbers hide.

These binaries (installable software) and packages are in development.
They may not be fully stable and should be used with caution. We make no claims about them.
Health stats visible at Monitor.