What’s in a name? Metabolite identification: challenges and pitfalls in untargeted metabolomics
Poor metabolite identification potentially represents an existential threat to the credibility of untargeted "discovery" metabolomics and can pollute the literature. Here we describe the aetiology of the problem and explain how and why this issue affects the field. We argue that coordinated action is required by researchers, database managers, scientific societies and the reviewers, editors and publishers of scientific journals to both acknowledge and address this important problem.
Authors
- Robert S. Plumb (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1380-9285)
- Michael A. Witting (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1462-4426)
- Royston Goodacre
- Timothy M. D. Ebbels (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3372-8423)
- Helen Gika (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1893-937X)
- Daniel Raftery
- Ian D. Wilson
- Georgios Theodoridis
- Michal Holčapek
- Oliver Fiehn
Institutions
- University of Pardubice (CZ)
- University of Liverpool (GB)
- Waters (United States) (US)
- Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (GR)
- Hammersmith Hospital (GB)
- Helmholtz Zentrum München (DE)
- Weihenstephan-Triesdorf University of Applied Sciences (DE)
- Northwest University (US)
- Centre for Research and Technology Hellas (GR)
- Imperial College London (GB)
- Technical University of Munich (DE)
- University of California, Davis (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Metabolomics
- Published
- 2026-02-09
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1007/s11306-025-02387-0
- Citations
- 1
- Primary Topic
- Metabolomics and Mass Spectrometry Studies
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 22.24
Funders
- National Institutes of Health
- HORIZON EUROPE Framework Programme
- Medical Research Council