Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Research Briefing
  • Published:

Accurate determination of molecular formulae using tandem mass spectrometry

We highlight the BUDDY software, which was developed to accurately determine the molecular formulae of unknown chemicals in mass spectrometry data. BUDDY is a bottom-up approach that shows superior annotation performance on reference spectra and experimental datasets. Incorporation of global peak annotation could enable BUDDY to refine formula annotations and reveal feature interrelationships.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Fig. 1: The bottom-up molecular formula annotation workflow.

References

  1. da Silva, R. R., Dorrestein, P. C. & Quinn, R. A. Illuminating the dark matter in metabolomics. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 112, 12549–12550 (2015). A commentary paper that presents the concept of “dark matter” in chemical discovery.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  2. Dührkop, K. et al. SIRIUS 4: a rapid tool for turning tandem mass spectra into metabolite structure information. Nat. Methods 16, 299–302 (2019). A benchmarking tool for molecular formula determination and chemical structure annotation.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  3. Huan Lab. GitHub https://github.com/HuanLab/BUDDY (2022). The free BUDDY software.

  4. Huan Lab Bioinformatics. YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ne_Y0vZ0WKI (2022). BUDDY quick-start video tutorial.

  5. Giné, R. et al. HERMES: a molecular-formula-oriented method to target the metabolome. Nat. Methods 18, 1370–1376 (2021). A new MS data acquisition approach that relies on large-scale targeted molecular formulae.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  6. Chen, L. et al. Metabolite discovery through global annotation of untargeted metabolomics data. Nat. Methods 18, 1377–1385 (2021). A research article that inspired our implementation of global peak annotation in BUDDY.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  7. Hoffmann, M. A. et al. High-confidence structural annotation of metabolites absent from spectral libraries. Nat. Biotechnol. 40, 411–421 (2022). A research article that incorporates confidence scores in metabolite annotation.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Additional information

Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

This is a summary of: Xing, S., Shen, S., Xu, B., Li, X. & Huan, T. BUDDY: molecular formula discovery via bottom-up MS/MS interrogation. Nat. Methods https://doi.org/10.1038/s41592-023-01850-x (2023).

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Accurate determination of molecular formulae using tandem mass spectrometry. Nat Methods 20, 799–800 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41592-023-01851-w

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41592-023-01851-w

Search

Quick links

Nature Briefing: Translational Research

Sign up for the Nature Briefing: Translational Research newsletter — top stories in biotechnology, drug discovery and pharma.

Get what matters in translational research, free to your inbox weekly. Sign up for Nature Briefing: Translational Research