Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Comparative Study
. 2025 Nov 30;493(Pt 3):145934.
doi: 10.1016/j.foodchem.2025.145934. Epub 2025 Aug 13.

A standardized nontargeted metabolomics method for cross-laboratory comparison of food profiles

Melanie T Odenkirk  1 , Cole Michel  2 , Katrina A Doenges  2 , Katrina L Leaptrot  3 , Stacy D Sherrod  3 , Jody C May  3 , Margaret L Read  1 , Jacqueline M Chaparro  4 , Nathan Montgomery  5 , Sarah Brinkley  6 , Arpana Vaniya  7 , Susan B Mitchell  1 , Bruce Yu  8 , Jason K Elhaderi  8 , Louie Henson  8 , Corey D Broeckling  5 , Oliver Fiehn  7 , Richard Reisdorph  2 , Nichole Reisdorph  2 , John A McLean  3 , Chi-Ming Chien  9 , Tracy Shafizadeh  10 , John de la Parra  11 , Selena Ahmed  12 , Steve Watkins  13 , Jessica E Prenni  14
Affiliations
Comparative Study

A standardized nontargeted metabolomics method for cross-laboratory comparison of food profiles

Melanie T Odenkirk et al. Food Chem. .

Abstract

Food composition has been traditionally defined by 35-160 chemical components with established nutritional significance for human health. Modern omics technologies have revealed that the chemical complexity of food is far greater, offering the potential to deepen our understanding of food composition to more precisely inform data-driven solutions across food systems. However, challenges in generating comparable omics data have limited the utility of omics technologies at the scale required to expand food composition databases. Herein, we present a standardized nontargeted LC-MS metabolomics method, supported by a novel internal retention time standard (IRTS) mixture of compounds non-endogenous to food that enables robust chromatographic alignment of data across laboratories. Our results demonstrate qualitative consensus of features across laboratories and/or instrumentation. This approach establishes the foundation for comparable, nontargeted omics analysis to support the next generation of food composition data.

Keywords: Food; Metabolomics; Nontargeted; Standardization.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of competing interest The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: Jessica Prenni reports financial support was provided by The Rockefeller Foundation. Jessica Prenni reports financial support was provided by Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research. Jessica Prenni reports financial support was provided by Atrium Health. Chi-Ming Chien, Tracy Shafizadeh, Steve Watkins reports a relationship with Verso Biosciences that includes: employment. If there are other authors, they declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

MeSH terms

LinkOut - more resources