The Metabolome of Humpback Whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) Reveals Clues as to their Extreme Fasting Capabilities

This dataset contains relative abundances of 34 polar metabolites detected in blubber biopsies from humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) migrating along the east coast of Australia. Samples were collected in Moreton Bay Marine Park, North Stradbroke Island, southeast Queensland, Australia, from individuals belonging to the east Australian migrating population (breeding stock E1, IWC designation) during their annual migration between Antarctic feeding grounds and tropical breeding areas. Metabolite quantification was performed using Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, and metabolite identification was conducted using Chenomx NMR Suite 8.2 (Chenomx Inc., Edmonton, Canada), based on the acquired ¹H spectra and comparison against reference spectra in the Human Metabolome Database (HMDB) to confirm 32 out of 34 metabolite identities.

本数据集包含沿澳大利亚东海岸洄游的座头鲸（Megaptera novaeangliae）鲸脂活检样本中检出的34种极性代谢物的相对丰度。样本采集于澳大利亚昆士兰州东南部北斯特拉德布罗克岛的摩顿湾海洋公园，采集对象为属于东澳洄游种群（繁殖种群E1，国际捕鲸委员会（IWC）命名）的个体，采集时段为该种群在南极觅食地与热带繁殖地之间的年度洄游期间。代谢物定量采用核磁共振（Nuclear Magnetic Resonance）光谱法完成；代谢物鉴定则借助加拿大埃德蒙顿市Chenomx公司的Chenomx NMR Suite 8.2软件开展，基于采集得到的光谱数据与人类代谢组数据库（Human Metabolome Database，HMDB）中的参考光谱进行比对，最终确认了34种代谢物中的32种的化学身份。