A new workflow to overcome analytical and informatics challenges in metabolomics has been developed by Thermo Fisher Scientific. The workflow integrates new application software – Thermo Scientific's Sieve 2.0 differential expression analysis and Mass Frontier 7.0 structural elucidation software – with powerful new Thermo Scientific high-resolution accurate mass instruments: the Q Exactive high performance benchtop quadrupole-Orbitrap LC-MS/MS and the Orbitrap Elite hybrid mass spectrometer. The new products accelerate even the most complex metabolomics studies and were unveiled at the 7th International Conference of the Metabolomics Society, at the end of June, in Cairns, Australia.
'Progress in metabolomics has been severely impeded by data-processing bottlenecks,' said Dr Mark Sanders, director of the demonstration and application laboratories of Thermo Fisher Scientific in North America. 'The new capability in Sieve 2.0 software eliminates the most significant bottlenecks in current metabolomics data-processing, enabling scientists to find the most promising putative biomarkers quickly.'
Sieve software is an automated solution for label-free, semi-quantitative differential expression analysis of proteins, peptides and metabolites. Using the software to pre-filter data generated by mass spectrometers greatly reduces the number of compounds that need to be identified, increasing the throughput of complex biomarker discovery experiments significantly.
The new features include:
- Advanced background subtraction removes chemical noise, eliminating false positives and increasing confidence in results.
- Automated spectral interpretation simplifies the data obtained from LC-MS experiments.
- Streamlined data analyses and interpretation facilitate identification of the most promising putative components.
- New statistical and visualisation tools speed-up the analysis of differentially expressed components.
