Experiment design beyond gut feeling: statistical tests and power to detect differential metabolites in mass spectrometry data

We use metabolite profiles of the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana measured on an UPLC-ESI/QqTOF-MS as a pilot study to estimate variance levels which then can be used to obtain several statistical parameters (e.g. minimum detectable effect, number of required replicates and error probabilities) which influence the design of a subsequent study.