Can we do square root transform of relative abundance before doing LEfSe?

Downstream analysis and statistics LEfSe
1

Hi,

I’m wondering if it is ok to do a square root transfer of relative abundance before doing LEfSe. Shall we always use untransformed data?

Thank you for helping!

Xinran

2

Hello,
Since LEfSe uses rank-based non-parametric tests, transformation shouldn’t be needed; in fact it should give the same results as transformed data as long it is a 1-to-1 transform.
Best,
Meg

3

Thank you for helping! That makes sense.