Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 10, 2026
Rapid High-throughput Species Identification of Botanical Material Using Direct Analysis in Real Time High Resolution Mass Spectrometry
Published on: October 2, 2016
plantMASST - Community-driven chemotaxonomic digitization of plants
Paulo Wender P Gomes1,2, Helena Mannochio-Russo1,2, Robin Schmid1,2,3
1Collaborative Mass Spectrometry Innovation Center, Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA.
Abstract:
Understanding the distribution of hundreds of thousands of plant metabolites across the plant kingdom presents a challenge. To address this, we curated publicly available LC-MS/MS data from 19,075 plant extracts and developed the plantMASST reference database encompassing 246 botanical families, 1,469 genera, and 2,793 species. This taxonomically focused database facilitates the exploration of plant-derived molecules using tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) spectra. This tool will aid in drug discovery, biosynthesis, (chemo)taxonomy, and the evolutionary ecology of herbivore interactions.
