Installation

MSTExplorer is now available via ghcr.io as a containerised environment with Rstudio and all necessary dependencies pre-installed.

Method 1: via Docker

First, install Docker if you have not already.

Create an image of the Docker container in command line:

docker pull ghcr.io/neurogenomics/MSTExplorer

Once the image has been created, you can launch it with:

docker run \
  -d \
  -e ROOT=true \
  -e PASSWORD="<your_password>" \
  -v ~/Desktop:/Desktop \
  -v /Volumes:/Volumes \
  -p 8900:8787 \
  ghcr.io/neurogenomics/MSTExplorer

NOTES

  • Make sure to replace <your_password> above with whatever you want your password to be.
  • Change the paths supplied to the -v flags for your particular use case.
  • The -d ensures the container will run in “detached” mode, which means it will persist even after you’ve closed your command line session.
  • The username will be “rstudio” by default.
  • Optionally, you can also install the Docker Desktop to easily manage your containers.

Method 2: via Singularity

If you are using a system that does not allow Docker (as is the case for many institutional computing clusters), you can instead install Docker images via Singularity.

singularity pull docker://ghcr.io/neurogenomics/MSTExplorer

For troubleshooting, see the Singularity documentation.

Usage

Finally, launch the containerised Rstudio by entering the following URL in any web browser: http://localhost:8900/

Login using the credentials set during the Installation steps.

Session Info

utils::sessionInfo()
## R version 4.5.1 (2025-06-13)
## Platform: x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
## Running under: Ubuntu 24.04.2 LTS
## 
## Matrix products: default
## BLAS:   /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/openblas-pthread/libblas.so.3 
## LAPACK: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/openblas-pthread/libopenblasp-r0.3.26.so;  LAPACK version 3.12.0
## 
## locale:
##  [1] LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8       LC_NUMERIC=C              
##  [3] LC_TIME=en_US.UTF-8        LC_COLLATE=en_US.UTF-8    
##  [5] LC_MONETARY=en_US.UTF-8    LC_MESSAGES=en_US.UTF-8   
##  [7] LC_PAPER=en_US.UTF-8       LC_NAME=C                 
##  [9] LC_ADDRESS=C               LC_TELEPHONE=C            
## [11] LC_MEASUREMENT=en_US.UTF-8 LC_IDENTIFICATION=C       
## 
## time zone: UTC
## tzcode source: system (glibc)
## 
## attached base packages:
## [1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base     
## 
## other attached packages:
## [1] MSTExplorer_1.0.9
## 
## loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
##   [1] later_1.4.2                 bitops_1.0-9               
##   [3] ggplotify_0.1.2             GeneOverlap_1.45.0         
##   [5] filelock_1.0.3              tibble_3.3.0               
##   [7] lifecycle_1.0.4             httr2_1.2.1                
##   [9] KGExplorer_0.99.09          rstatix_0.7.2              
##  [11] HPOExplorer_1.0.5           doParallel_1.0.17          
##  [13] lattice_0.22-7              pals_1.10                  
##  [15] backports_1.5.0             magrittr_2.0.3             
##  [17] limma_3.65.3                plotly_4.11.0              
##  [19] sass_0.4.10                 rmarkdown_2.29             
##  [21] jquerylib_0.1.4             yaml_2.3.10                
##  [23] httpuv_1.6.16               HGNChelper_0.8.15          
##  [25] mapproj_1.2.12              DBI_1.2.3                  
##  [27] RColorBrewer_1.1-3          maps_3.4.3                 
##  [29] abind_1.4-8                 GenomicRanges_1.61.1       
##  [31] rvest_1.0.4                 purrr_1.1.0                
##  [33] BiocGenerics_0.55.1         yulab.utils_0.2.0          
##  [35] rappdirs_0.3.3              circlize_0.4.16            
##  [37] IRanges_2.43.0              S4Vectors_0.47.0           
##  [39] rols_3.5.0                  tidytree_0.4.6             
##  [41] piggyback_0.1.5             pkgdown_2.1.3              
##  [43] codetools_0.2-20            DelayedArray_0.35.2        
##  [45] xml2_1.3.8                  tidyselect_1.2.1           
##  [47] shape_1.4.6.1               aplot_0.2.8                
##  [49] farver_2.1.2                matrixStats_1.5.0          
##  [51] stats4_4.5.1                BiocFileCache_2.99.5       
##  [53] Seqinfo_0.99.2              jsonlite_2.0.0             
##  [55] GetoptLong_1.0.5            tidygraph_1.3.1            
##  [57] Formula_1.2-5               iterators_1.0.14           
##  [59] systemfonts_1.2.3           foreach_1.5.2              
##  [61] tools_4.5.1                 treeio_1.33.0              
##  [63] ragg_1.4.0                  Rcpp_1.1.0                 
##  [65] glue_1.8.0                  SparseArray_1.9.1          
##  [67] xfun_0.52                   MatrixGenerics_1.21.0      
##  [69] RNOmni_1.0.1.2              dplyr_1.1.4                
##  [71] BiocManager_1.30.26         fastmap_1.2.0              
##  [73] caTools_1.18.3              digest_0.6.37              
##  [75] R6_2.6.1                    mime_0.13                  
##  [77] gridGraphics_0.5-1          textshaping_1.0.1          
##  [79] colorspace_2.1-1            gtools_3.9.5               
##  [81] dichromat_2.0-0.1           RSQLite_2.4.2              
##  [83] tidyr_1.3.1                 generics_0.1.4             
##  [85] data.table_1.17.8           httr_1.4.7                 
##  [87] htmlwidgets_1.6.4           S4Arrays_1.9.1             
##  [89] scatterplot3d_0.3-44        pkgconfig_2.0.3            
##  [91] gtable_0.3.6                blob_1.2.4                 
##  [93] ComplexHeatmap_2.25.2       SingleCellExperiment_1.31.1
##  [95] XVector_0.49.0              htmltools_0.5.8.1          
##  [97] carData_3.0-5               clue_0.3-66                
##  [99] scales_1.4.0                Biobase_2.69.0             
## [101] png_0.1-8                   ggfun_0.2.0                
## [103] knitr_1.50                  reshape2_1.4.4             
## [105] rjson_0.2.23                nlme_3.1-168               
## [107] curl_6.4.0                  cachem_1.1.0               
## [109] GlobalOptions_0.1.2         Polychrome_1.5.4           
## [111] stringr_1.5.1               BiocVersion_3.22.0         
## [113] KernSmooth_2.23-26          parallel_4.5.1             
## [115] AnnotationDbi_1.71.1        desc_1.4.3                 
## [117] pillar_1.11.0               grid_4.5.1                 
## [119] vctrs_0.6.5                 gplots_3.2.0               
## [121] promises_1.3.3              ggpubr_0.6.1               
## [123] car_3.1-3                   dbplyr_2.5.0               
## [125] xtable_1.8-4                cluster_2.1.8.1            
## [127] evaluate_1.0.4              orthogene_1.15.0           
## [129] cli_3.6.5                   compiler_4.5.1             
## [131] rlang_1.1.6                 crayon_1.5.3               
## [133] grr_0.9.5                   simona_1.7.1               
## [135] ggsignif_0.6.4              gprofiler2_0.2.3           
## [137] plyr_1.8.9                  EWCE_1.15.1                
## [139] fs_1.6.6                    stringi_1.8.7              
## [141] viridisLite_0.4.2           ewceData_1.17.0            
## [143] BiocParallel_1.43.4         babelgene_22.9             
## [145] Biostrings_2.77.2           lazyeval_0.2.2             
## [147] homologene_1.4.68.19.3.27   Matrix_1.7-3               
## [149] ExperimentHub_2.99.5        patchwork_1.3.1            
## [151] bit64_4.6.0-1               ggplot2_3.5.2              
## [153] statmod_1.5.0               KEGGREST_1.49.1            
## [155] shiny_1.11.1                SummarizedExperiment_1.39.1
## [157] AnnotationHub_3.99.6        igraph_2.1.4               
## [159] broom_1.0.9                 memoise_2.0.1              
## [161] bslib_0.9.0                 ggtree_3.17.1              
## [163] fastmatch_1.1-6             bit_4.6.0                  
## [165] splitstackshape_1.4.8       ape_5.8-1