Web-based inference of biological patterns, functions and pathways from metabolomic data using MetaboAnalyst

Abstract

MetaboAnalyst is an integrated web-based platform for comprehensive analysis of quantitative metabolomic data. It is designed to be used by biologists (with little or no background in statistics) to perform a variety of complex metabolomic data analysis tasks. These include data processing, data normalization, statistical analysis and high-level functional interpretation. This protocol provides a step-wise description on how to format and upload data to MetaboAnalyst, how to process and normalize data, how to identify significant features and patterns through univariate and multivariate statistical methods and, finally, how to use metabolite set enrichment analysis and metabolic pathway analysis to help elucidate possible biological mechanisms. The complete protocol can be executed in approximately 45 min.