Metabuli: sensitive and specific metagenomic classification via joint analysis of amino acid and DNA

Metagenomic taxonomic classifiers analyze either DNA or amino acid (AA) sequences. Metabuli (https://metabuli.steineggerlab.com), however, jointly analyzes both DNA and AA to leverage AA conservation for sensitive homology detection and DNA mutations for specific differentiation of closely related taxa. In the Critical Assessment of Metagenome Interpretation 2 plant-associated dataset, Metabuli covered 99% and 98% of classifications of state-of-the-art DNA- and AA-based classifiers, respectively.