Human plasma is a well-studied biofluid in terms of its metabolite composition, as shown by the thousands of entries in the Human Metabolome Database. However, not even nearly all of them are every time detectable by untargeted LC-MS when analysing typical fasting plasma samples. Therefore, we collaborated with Chalmers University of Technology and the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) to determine which are the “usual suspects” of the plasma metabolome, detected repeatedly across the participating laboratories. We found 288 unique metabolites encompassing all typical metabolite classes, out of which 52 were so-called known unknowns. We created an interactive online tool together with Koponen+Hildén, a Helsinki-based information design agency, to visualise the results. The idea is not to stop there but to allow contributions from other laboratories as well who are planning to analyse human plasma with LC-MS. This way we could allow an even better definition of the human plasma metabolome. The Plasma Benchmark study was recently published in Nature Metabolism (the full paper is available from the authors on request).
Just out: The reproducible LC-MS human plasma metabolome
Human plasma is a well-studied biofluid in terms of its metabolite composition, as shown by the thousands of entries in the Human Metabolome Database. However, not even nearly all of…
