Thing Metabolome Repository

Things Metabolome Repository provides information about compound peaks detected in various "things" by metabolome analyses using liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS). This is a sister website of Food Metabolome Repository and Plant Metabolome Repository.

MassChroBook

2D images of all samples are available in PowerPoint files.

Current status

(2024/8/22 updated) See Sample list for the details.

Animals	14
Plants (leaf, flower, root etc.)	609
Bacteria	25
Foods	103
Traditional Chinese medicine (Kampo)	127
Environment	8
Products	25
From NBRP (National BioResource Project)	150
Standard compound mix.	65 (107 compounds)
Total	967

NBRP Samples

Samples from National BioResource Project are included.

Yeast	7 + medium 6	Resource Center
Barley	5	Resource Center
Morning glory	5	Resource Center
Tomato	102	Resource Center
Chrysanthemum	16	Resource Center
Ciona intestinalis	2	Resource Center
General microbes	4 + medium 3	Resource Center

Aim: Discovery and utilization of unknown compounds

Various "things" surrounding us contain a huge number of unknown compounds. For example, Dr. Satoshi Omura, who was awarded the 2015 Nobel prize in Physiology and Medicine, discovered the insecticidal "avermectin" from Streptomyces avermitilis isolated from the soil in Izu peninsula, Japan. A lot of such unused compounds are expected in the various "things".

Things Metabolome Repository is being constructed for data mining and further use of unknown compounds.

Several hundreds to thousand of compounds are detected in various things using high-sensitivity mass spectrometers. However, most of their measured mass values are not match those in the databases of known compounds previously discovered in the world. A huge number of unknown compounds are actually there.

How should we discover novel useful compounds form the sea of unknowns?

A promising way is focusing on the compounds in specific things.
Herbs and their medicinal ingredients have been focused on and discovered based on their plant specific medicinal effects. The unknown mass values detected in one thing is not a good clue by itself, but a comparison of the unknown data between a rich variety of things should bring good insights to focus on thing-specific unknowns and further investigation of their functions.

For the next generation discovery and use of unknown compounds, Things Metabolome Repository accumulates and provides mass spectral data of unknowns from various things in a "comparable" way.

Feature 1: Search by mass and retention time

Sample specific localization of a peak in various things can be queried by the accurate mass value detected and the retention time of LC.

Feature 2: Search by mass spectrum

The peaks can be searched based on the similarity of MS/MS spectral pattern.

* MS/MS spectra are not available for all peaks.

Feature 3: API

A set of application programming interface (API) which enables computational access to the search and acquiring functions of this website is available. This enables to perform an automatic search of a large number of queries and further analysis of data using bioinformatic techniques. Actually, the unknown in poppy was found using API. See Help - APIs for the details of the use.

Caution for compound annotations

The compound information provided in this repository is NOT the one that qualified and quantified by authentic methods.

It is not guaranteed that the compounds listed for the peak are present in the sample.
It is not guaranteed that the compounds not listed for the peak are absent in the sample.

We just provide the candidate compound names that were found in the compound database searching based on the mass value similarities to the detected peaks. Therefore, the results contain many false positives and false negatives. Please use the data with appropriate knowledge for untargeted metabolome analyses using LC-MS.