Community Needs and Proposed Solutions for a Broadly Applicable Standard/QC Mixture for High-Resolution Mass...

Area of Science:

• Analytical Chemistry
• Environmental Science
• Metabolomics

Background:

• Non-targeted analysis (NTA) with high-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) enables global chemical screening for detecting unknown compounds.
• Current challenges in NTA include assessing data quality, ensuring inter-laboratory comparability, and communicating results with confidence.
• A standardized chemical mixture is lacking but essential for addressing these limitations.

Purpose of the Study:

• To survey NTA researchers on requirements for a comprehensive chemical standard mixture.
• To compare existing in-house standards with community needs for potential commercialization.
• To advocate for the development and implementation of an interdisciplinary NTA standard.

Main Methods:

• A survey was distributed to 146 researchers actively involved in non-targeted analysis.
• The survey focused on desired characteristics for standard mixtures used in reversed-phase liquid chromatography HRMS methods.
• Feedback was compared against characteristics of previously published in-house standard mixtures.

Main Results:

• Identified key requirements from NTA researchers for a diverse and representative chemical standard.
• Highlighted the potential of in-house standards as models for a commercially viable NTA standard.
• Gathered community input to guide the development of a much-needed NTA standard mixture.

Conclusions:

• An interdisciplinary standard mixture is essential for advancing NTA applications.
• Implementing standardized mixtures will improve data reliability and comparability across different labs and methods.
• This work aims to facilitate the development and commercialization of NTA standard mixtures, lowering adoption barriers.