Metabolomic Profiling of Biological Reference Materials using a Multiplatform High-Resolution Mass Spectrometric Approach

The number of metabolomics
studies have increased dramatically
in recent years, spanning from basic/mechanistic research to the identification
and validation of clinical biomarkers. Developments in analyte separation
techniques and the growth of databases are largely responsible for
the rapid growth of metabolomics, although broad differences in analytical
workflows can result in difficulty when comparing data across studies.
The establishment of baseline metabolomics data for human reference
materials using complementary/orthogonal data acquisition strategies
can help to alleviate some of these challenges. To this end, we report
nontargeted semiquantitative metabolomics data for 22 commercially
available materials including plasma (healthy, diabetic, hypertriglyceridemic,
African-American), serum (female, male, pregnant, among others), feces
(meconium, vegan, omnivore), urine (smokers’ and nonsmokers’),
breast milk, saliva, and vaginal fluid, using ultrahigh-performance
liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry in positive
and negative electrospray ionization, as well as gas chromatography–electron
ionization-mass spectrometry. Significant differences were observed
in the metabolomic fingerprints between all sample types. Post hoc
comparisons between relevant sample types support the relevance of
these materials and the validity of nontargeted strategies in global
metabolomics. As the number and variety of reference materials continues
to increase, it is imperative that their adoption is matched. The
results of this study may inform future biomedical research by highlighting
several metabolites across matrixes and treatments/states that could
serve as clinical biomarkers or important biochemical pathway intermediates.
Furthermore, our work can serve as a metric for systems suitability,
quality assurance, and quality control across the community via the
dissemination of high-quality and publicly available annotated metabolomics
data.