MetaboLyzer

An operations guide, installation instructions, and the MetaboLyzer script itself are available for download in the links belowAbstract

Metabolomics, the global study of small molecules in a particular system, has in the last few years risen to become a primary –omics platform for the study of metabolic processes. With the ever-increasing pool of quantitative data yielded from metabolomic research, specialized methods and tools with which to analyze and extract meaningful conclusions from these data are becoming more and more crucial. Furthermore, the depth of knowledge and expertise required to undertake a metabolomics oriented study is a daunting obstacle to novices. As such, we have created a new statistical analysis workflow, MetaboLyzer, which has been specifically developed with the metabolomics novice in mind, but is also useful to experts. MetaboLyzer’s workflow is specifically tailored to the unique characteristics and idiosyncrasies of post-processed liquid

chromatography/mass spectrometry (LC/MS) based metabolomic datasets. It utilizes a wide gamut of statistical tests, procedures, and methodologies that belong to classical biostatistics, as well as several novel statistical techniques that we have developed specifically for metabolomics data. Furthermore, MetaboLyzer conducts rapid putative ion identification and biologically relevant analysis via incorporation of four major small molecule databases: KEGG, HMDB, Lipid Maps, and BioCyc. MetaboLyzer incorporates these aspects into a comprehensive workflow that outputs easy to understand statistically and biologically significant information in the form of heat maps, volcano plots, 3D visualization plots, correlation maps, and metabolic pathway hit histograms. MetaboLyzer’s unique ability to distinguish mammalian metabolites from those of bacterial and plant origin provides an extra degree of confidence in these results.