Long-Term Metabolomics Reference Material

Abstract

The use of quality control samples in metabolomics ensures data quality, reproducibility and comparability between studies, analytical platforms and laboratories. Long-term, stable and sustainable reference materials (RMs) are a critical component of the QA/QC system, however, the limited selection of currently available matrix matched RMs reduce their applicability for widespread use. To produce a RM in any context, for any matrix that is robust to changes over the course of time we developed IBAT (Iterative Batch Averaging meThod). To illustrate this method, we generated 11 independently grown E. coli batches and made a RM over the course of 10 IBAT iterations. We measured the variance of these materials by NMR and showed that IBAT produces a stable and sustainable RM over time. This E. coli RM was then used as food source to produce a C. elegans RM for a metabolomics experiment.