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van Tetering L, Spies S, Wildeman QDK, Houthuijs KJ, van Outersterp RE, Martens J, Wevers RA, Wishart DS, Berden G, Oomens J. A spectroscopic test suggests that fragment ion structure annotations in MS/MS libraries are frequently incorrect. Commun Chem 2024; 7:30. [PMID: 38355930 PMCID: PMC10867025 DOI: 10.1038/s42004-024-01112-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/18/2023] [Accepted: 01/22/2024] [Indexed: 02/16/2024] Open
Abstract
Modern untargeted mass spectrometry (MS) analyses quickly detect and resolve thousands of molecular compounds. Although features are readily annotated with a molecular formula in high-resolution small-molecule MS applications, the large majority of them remains unidentified in terms of their full molecular structure. Collision-induced dissociation tandem mass spectrometry (CID-MS2) provides a diagnostic molecular fingerprint to resolve the molecular structure through a library search. However, for de novo identifications, one must often rely on in silico generated MS2 spectra as reference. The ability of different in silico algorithms to correctly predict MS2 spectra and thus to retrieve correct molecular structures is a topic of lively debate, for instance in the CASMI contest. Underlying the predicted MS2 spectra are the in silico generated product ion structures, which are normally not used in de novo identification, but which can serve to critically assess the fragmentation algorithms. Here we evaluate in silico generated MSn product ion structures by comparison with structures established experimentally by infrared ion spectroscopy (IRIS). For a set of three dozen product ion structures from five precursor molecules, we find that virtually all fragment ion structure annotations in three major in silico MS2 libraries (HMDB, METLIN, mzCloud) are incorrect and caution the reader against their use for structure annotation of MS/MS ions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lara van Tetering
- Radboud University, Institute for Molecules and Materials, FELIX Laboratory, Toernooiveld 7, 6525ED, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
| | - Sylvia Spies
- Radboud University, Institute for Molecules and Materials, FELIX Laboratory, Toernooiveld 7, 6525ED, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
| | - Quirine D K Wildeman
- Radboud University, Institute for Molecules and Materials, FELIX Laboratory, Toernooiveld 7, 6525ED, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
| | - Kas J Houthuijs
- Radboud University, Institute for Molecules and Materials, FELIX Laboratory, Toernooiveld 7, 6525ED, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
| | - Rianne E van Outersterp
- Radboud University, Institute for Molecules and Materials, FELIX Laboratory, Toernooiveld 7, 6525ED, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
| | - Jonathan Martens
- Radboud University, Institute for Molecules and Materials, FELIX Laboratory, Toernooiveld 7, 6525ED, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
| | - Ron A Wevers
- Department of Laboratory Medicine, Translational Metabolic Laboratory, Radboud University Medical Center, Geert Grooteplein Zuid 10, 6525GA, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
| | - David S Wishart
- Departments of Computing Science and Biological Sciences, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada
| | - Giel Berden
- Radboud University, Institute for Molecules and Materials, FELIX Laboratory, Toernooiveld 7, 6525ED, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
| | - Jos Oomens
- Radboud University, Institute for Molecules and Materials, FELIX Laboratory, Toernooiveld 7, 6525ED, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
- van 't Hoff Institute for Molecular Sciences, University of Amsterdam, Science Park 904, 1098XH, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
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