To evaluate the performance of the methods, we attempted to manually group the studies in the compendium based on similarities in the studied biological phenomena, before the start of the development of any new methodologies, We recognized 7 groups for a subset of 50 studies: dystrophin-deficiency (human and mouse), dysferlin-deficiency (human and mouse), myositis, regeneration and differentiation, ageing, atrophy, and extraocular muscle (EOM)-specific expression profiles (cf. the table in Additional file 1). Here, DMD is linked to hyperinsulinemic hypoglycemia, familial, 4.