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Normalization and integration of large-scale metabolomics data using support vector regression

Metabolomics volume 12, Article number: 89 (2016) Cite this article

Abstract

Introduction

Untargeted metabolomics studies for biomarker discovery often have hundreds to thousands of human samples. Data acquisition of large-scale samples has to be divided into several batches and may span from months to as long as several years. The signal drift of metabolites during data acquisition (intra- and inter-batch) is unavoidable and is a major confounding factor for large-scale metabolomics studies.

Objectives

We aim to develop a data normalization method to reduce unwanted variations and integrate multiple batches in large-scale metabolomics studies prior to statistical analyses.

Methods

We developed a machine learning algorithm-based method, support vector regression (SVR), for large-scale metabolomics data normalization and integration. An R package named MetNormalizer was developed and provided for data processing using SVR normalization.

Results

After SVR normalization, the portion of metabolite ion peaks with relative standard deviations (RSDs) less than 30 % increased to more than 90 % of the total peaks, which is much better than other common normalization methods. The reduction of unwanted analytical variations helps to improve the performance of multivariate statistical analyses, both unsupervised and supervised, in terms of classification and prediction accuracy so that subtle metabolic changes in epidemiological studies can be detected.

Conclusion

SVR normalization can effectively remove the unwanted intra- and inter-batch variations, and is much better than other common normalization methods.

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Acknowledgments

The work is financially supported by the funding from Interdisciplinary Research Center on Biology and Chemistry (IRCBC), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grants 21575151 and 81573246). Z.-J. Z. is supported by Thousand Youth Talents Program (The Recruitment Program of Global Youth Experts from Chinese government). This work is also partially supported by Agilent Technologies Thought Leader Award.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Interdisciplinary Research Center on Biology and Chemistry, and Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, 200032, People’s Republic of China

    Xiaotao Shen, Yuping Cai, Yuan Guo, Jia Tu, Hao Li & Zheng-Jiang Zhu

  2. Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Shandong University, Jinan, 250012, People’s Republic of China

    Xiaoyun Gong, Tao Zhang & Fuzhong Xue

  3. Shandong Cancer Hospital affiliated to Shandong University, and Shandong Academy of Medical Sciences, Jinan, 250117, People’s Republic of China

    Jialin Wang

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  1. Xiaotao Shen
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  2. Xiaoyun Gong
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  3. Yuping Cai
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  4. Yuan Guo
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  5. Jia Tu
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  7. Tao Zhang
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  9. Fuzhong Xue
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  10. Zheng-Jiang Zhu
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Correspondence to Zheng-Jiang Zhu.

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The authors declare no competing financial interest.

Ethical approval

All institutional and national guidelines for the care and use of biological samples were followed. The data acquired were in accordance with appropriate ethical requirements.

Research involving human participants

The human study was approved by the ethics committee of Shandong Cancer Hospital affiliated to Shandong University, Shandong Province, China.

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All written informed consents were obtained from all participants involved in this study.

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Shen, X., Gong, X., Cai, Y. et al. Normalization and integration of large-scale metabolomics data using support vector regression. Metabolomics 12, 89 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11306-016-1026-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11306-016-1026-5

Keywords

  • Metabolomics
  • Data normalization
  • Data integration
  • Support vector regression
  • Quality control