Metabolites (Nov 2022)

A Comprehensive Mass Spectrometry-Based Workflow for Clinical Metabolomics Cohort Studies

  • Zhan Shi,
  • Haohui Li,
  • Wei Zhang,
  • Youxiang Chen,
  • Chunyan Zeng,
  • Xiuhua Kang,
  • Xinping Xu,
  • Zhenkun Xia,
  • Bei Qing,
  • Yunchang Yuan,
  • Guodong Song,
  • Camila Caldana,
  • Junyuan Hu,
  • Lothar Willmitzer,
  • Yan Li

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/metabo12121168
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 12, no. 12
p. 1168

Abstract

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As a comprehensive analysis of all metabolites in a biological system, metabolomics is being widely applied in various clinical/health areas for disease prediction, diagnosis, and prognosis. However, challenges remain in dealing with the metabolomic complexity, massive data, metabolite identification, intra- and inter-individual variation, and reproducibility, which largely limit its widespread implementation. This study provided a comprehensive workflow for clinical metabolomics, including sample collection and preparation, mass spectrometry (MS) data acquisition, and data processing and analysis. Sample collection from multiple clinical sites was strictly carried out with standardized operation procedures (SOP). During data acquisition, three types of quality control (QC) samples were set for respective MS platforms (GC-MS, LC-MS polar, and LC-MS lipid) to assess the MS performance, facilitate metabolite identification, and eliminate contamination. Compounds annotation and identification were implemented with commercial software and in-house-developed PAppLineTM and UlibMS library. The batch effects were removed using a deep learning model method (NormAE). Potential biomarkers identification was performed with tree-based modeling algorithms including random forest, AdaBoost, and XGBoost. The modeling performance was evaluated using the F1 score based on a 10-times repeated trial for each. Finally, a sub-cohort case study validated the reliability of the entire workflow.

Keywords