Untargeted metabolomics workshop report: quality control considerations from sample preparation to data analysis

The Metabolomics workshop on experimental and data analysis training for untargeted metabolomics was hosted by the Proteomics Society of India in December 2019. The Workshop included six tutorial lectures and hands-on data analysis training sessions presented by seven speakers. The tutorials and hands-on data analysis sessions focused on workflows for liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) based on untargeted metabolomics. We review here three main topics from the workshop which were uniquely identified as bottlenecks for new researchers: a) experimental design, b) quality controls during sample preparation and instrumental analysis and c) data quality evaluation. Our objective here is to present common challenges faced by novice researchers and present possible guidelines and resources to address them. We provide resources and good practices for researchers who are at the initial stage of setting up metabolomics workflows in their labs.

Complete detailed metabolomics/lipidomics protocols are available online at EMBL-MCF protocol including video tutorials.