Analysis of Metabolomics data in Natural Products: a Tutorial Review

The incredible natural diversity that we can admire at different ecosystems is a result of genetic combinations along with complex metabolic reactions. For centuries, mankind has learned from nature and used its resources to improve the quality of our life. Therefore, the better understanding of the metabolites hole in living organisms' metabolism and/or in ecological interactions represent a potential strategy to streamline several processes under investigation, such as drug development. In this context, metabolomics has emerged as an indispensable tool to analyze the metabolites in biological systems through spectral information. Metabolomics has been applied to answer biological questions of increasing complexity, which demands robust methodologies to assure reproducibility and reliability in the results presented to the scientific community. Hence, this tutorial-review covers a step-by-step guide for metabolomics analysis, including free available tools. Data acquisition and the main steps of data processing are presented, and we also address commonly applied statistical analysis and data visualization approaches that can improve the comprehension and interpretation of complex datasets. In addition, we discuss some annotation tools and bring up good practices and how to apply them. This work provides background on resources and concepts needed from all the researchers interested in this topic.