Met-Ex - The Metabolite Standards Repository and Exchange

In so-called 'systems biology' researchers are involved in increasingly thorough analysis of the thousands of molecules of life that make up living organisms. These large data sets are used to build computational models of the organism and enable predications to be made of how cells, organs and whole organisms develop and react to the environment including diseases. Such studies will lead to greater opportunities in many fields including clinical diagnosis, drug design, and, in agriculture, predictions of how crops will react to stresses such as drought and climate change. The 'omics' sciences are a generic term for the generation and study of these large datasets. Metabolomics (the study of all of the metabolites in a biological system) represents one of the most technically challenging of the large-scale analytical sciences that are providing the data for systems biology. There are many thousands of different metabolites present in an organism at any one time. These are measured by application of spectroscopic techniques such as NMR and mass spectroscopy to biofluids such as blood and urine or to solvent extracts of tissue such as plant leaves and fruits. Metabolite fingerprints generated by these techniques can only be partially interpreted. One of the reasons for this is that authentic standards of each of the thousands of metabolites need to used for spectroscopic comparison to allow positive identification of an unknown compound within a metabolite fingerprint. Many key metabolite standards are not readily available or are very expensive. This proposal aims to create a repository (Met-Ex) where researchers can submit and exchange samples of metabolites that will help fellow researchers annotate metabolite fingerprints. The project will produce a curated collection of authentic samples of natural products, under the auspices of MeT-RO, a leading centre for metabolomic screening in plant and microbial sciences. These compounds will be sourced from existing collections, commercial companies and other research laboratories. They will be made available to other researchers via an online resource which will be run in a shop front style using a credits system, where participating laboratories can donate or request analytical standards of compounds of interest. By keeping in tune with the needs of the metabolomics community via surveys and discussion, the collection will be grown to become a resource through which metabolites can be shared, thereby maximising annotation of metabolite fingerprints while avoiding the need for individual laboratories to replicate expensive purchases or spend time isolating standards from natural sources.

Metabolomic screening of biofluids and extracts from biological tissue by NMR and mass spectrometry is a rapidly developing technology with many applications in systems biology, healthcare, crop and food science. The metabolome is complex and NMR and MS metabolite fingerprints contain several thousands of signals, many of which cannot be assigned to specific metabolites. One of the major factors that is impeding the complete annotation of metabolite fingerprints is the lack of availability of authentic standards. This proposal addresses this problem and aims to set up a repository (Met-Ex) for analytical standards. This project will ensure that metabolomics and system biology researchers can access samples of a wider range of metabolites. The Met-Ex exchange will be a web-accessible resource, managed by the MeT-RO metabolomics service centre. It will operate by means of a system of credits where research groups can share natural product samples in return for access to others. The nature of the metabolites held in the repository will be determined by community surveys. Quality control and spectroscopic data on the compound collection will be part of the service. The collection will be made up from unwanted chemicals originally sourced from chemical companies, new Met-Ex purchases and collections of compounds built up from isolation or synthesis in academic natural products laboratories. In this way individual research groups, accessing the collection, will save money, avoid duplication and have access to a wider range of metabolites. Key features of Met-Ex will be the continuously updated online resource, listing the metabolites in the repository or wanted by the repository. The web-site will have a shop-front presentation allowing users to browse the collection, deposit and/or order metabolites.