Can we trust untargeted metabolomics? Results of the metabo-ring initiative, a large-scale, multi-instrument inter-laboratory study.

The metabo-ring initiative brought together five nuclear magnetic resonance instruments (NMR) and 11 different mass spectrometers with the objective of assessing the reliability of untargeted metabolomics approaches in obtaining comparable metabolomics profiles. This was estimated by measuring the proportion of common spectral information extracted from the different LCMS and NMR platforms. Biological samples obtained from 2 different conditions were analysed by the partners using their own in-house protocols.