QUALITY ASSURANCE IN UNTARGETED METABOLOMICS

Over the last two decades, metabolomics has emerged as a pivotal tool in multidisciplinary research, providing invaluable insights into metabolome modulations and finding applications across various scientific domains, including medicine and agronomy. Nonetheless, the absence of standardized procedures in sample preparation, data acquisition, and documentation of data quality presents a significant challenge. This review underscores the critical importance of quality assurance and quality control (QA/QC) in untargeted metabolomics, advocating for the establishment of agreed-upon QA/QC reporting standards within the scientific community. We discuss the requisite quality controls at various stages of untargeted metabolomics studies, encompassing blank samples, pooled samples, and the utilization of external quality control samples. Methods for assessing accuracy, reproducibility, and identifying/correcting batch effects are addressed. Furthermore, emphasis is placed on standardizing the description of QA/QC data in scientific publications and repositories to foster reproducibility and transparency. We recommend the publication of QC data alongside studies in appropriate databases to facilitate data comparison and sharing among researchers, thereby enhancing the quality of untargeted metabolomics research. In summary, implementing standardized QA/QC data reporting, along with promoting best practices within the untargeted metabolomics community, is crucial for improving result quality and credibility and advancing research utilizing this powerful technique.