The number of metabolomics studies have increased dramatically in recent years, spanning from basic/mechanistic research to the identification and validation of clinical biomarkers. Developments in analyte separation techniques and the growth of databases are largely responsible for the rapid growth of metabolomics, although broad differences in analytical workflows can result in difficulty when comparing data across studies. The establishment of baseline metabolomics data for human reference materials using complementary/orthogonal data acquisition strategies can help to alleviate some of these challenges. To this end, we report nontargeted semiquantitative metabolomics data for 22 commercially available materials including plasma (healthy, diabetic, hypertriglyceridemic, African-American), serum (female, male, pregnant, among others), feces (meconium, vegan, omnivore), urine (smokers’ and nonsmokers’), breast milk, saliva, and vaginal fluid, using ultrahigh-performance liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry in positive and negative electrospray ionization, as well as gas chromatography–electron ionization-mass spectrometry. Significant differences were observed in the metabolomic fingerprints between all sample types. Post hoc comparisons between relevant sample types support the relevance of these materials and the validity of nontargeted strategies in global metabolomics. As the number and variety of reference materials continues to increase, it is imperative that their adoption is matched. The results of this study may inform future biomedical research by highlighting several metabolites across matrixes and treatments/states that could serve as clinical biomarkers or important biochemical pathway intermediates. Furthermore, our work can serve as a metric for systems suitability, quality assurance, and quality control across the community via the dissemination of high-quality and publicly available annotated metabolomics data.

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Cold stress syndrome (CSS) in the Florida manatee (Trichechus manatus latirostris) results in perturbations to many physiological pathways, often leading to further illness or death. In this study, we applied a non-targeted lipidomics approach with ultra-high performance liquid chromatography and high-resolution tandem mass spectrometry to characterize changes related to CSS in the lipidomic profiles of manatee plasma. Lipidomic analyses were conducted on healthy manatee (control) and cold-exposed manatee plasma samples with varying concentrations of Serum Amyloid A (SAA), an acute-phase protein that is associated with inflammatory disease. Control manatees (n = 10) were compared to all manatees exposed to cold temperatures (n = 17), and a subset of those manatees with SAA values > 120 μg/mL (n = 9). Increased SAA values were associated with higher levels of various acylcarnitine lipids, while several triacylglycerols and oxidized triacylglycerols were significantly lower in manatees with cold exposure. These identified lipids are critical molecules involved in the maintenance of energy homeostasis and could potentially be examined in conjunction with current physical parameters to characterize cold stress. The ability to detect such differences highlights the addition of lipidomics as a valuable tool in understanding cold stress and potentially other illnesses in manatees. Further investigation into the function of the altered lipids could greatly increase our understanding of lipid metabolism in physiologically stressed manatees as well as other marine mammals and inform future management recovery strategies.

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