GGally for quick overviews

Metabolites and lipids descriptive statistical analysis in R

In this subchapter, we want to introduce the package GGally, a great extension of the ggplot package. We will show one function, that can be useful if a fast glimpse at the descriptive statistics is necessary, e.g. while building models. However, with all your current skills in R, we encourage you to investigate this library and its functions more deeply. More information can be found here:

GGally R package: Extension to ggplot2 for correlation matrix and survival plots - R software and data visualization - Easy Guides - Wiki - STHDAwww.sthda.com

Introduction to the GGally package.

We will show you the function called ggpairs(). It can be applied to make a matrix of plots with your data set. Using one word, you can immediately plot for your numeric data:

• box plots,

• density plots,

• scatter plots,

• histograms,

• and the information about the correlation value.

Check this simple code below and the obtained plot:

# Installing GGally:
install.packages("GGally")

# Calling library:
library(GGally)

# Consulting the documentation about the function:
?ggpairs()

# Creating an exemplary overview of selected features:
data %>%
  select(`Label`,
         `SM 39:1;O2`,
         `SM 40:1;O2`,
         `SM 41:1;O2`,
         `SM 42:1;O2`) %>%
  ggpairs()

The output:

Fast overview of selected SM species created using the GGally library.