The TripleTOF 5600+ mass spectrometer (SCIEX) is equipped with an electrospray ionization source which is interfaced to the UPLC 1290 from Agilent Technologies.

Through the SWATH acquisition, the mass spectrometer is capable to obtain MS/MS^ALL; moreover the implemented SelexION technology permits to solve isobaric interferences. Bioinformatics tools are also available for statistical validation and metabolomic data interpretation with the aim of identifying the altered metabolic pathways in the experimental groups (MarkerView, MasterView, LipidView, Mass Profile Professional, with the latter software able to integrate different “omics” data).

Accurate mass metabolite spectral library, created using the TripleTOF 5600+ LC-MS/MS system, is used for metabolite identification. The metabolite identification is a bottleneck step in the metabolomics workflow because most of the MS spectra in the web-free available databases (HMDB, Metlin) are acquired with several MS platforms that are not necessarly comparable. The implementation of accurate mass metabolite spectral library in this MS platform, based on MS spectra obtained by the same MS SCIEX equipment, is extremely useful for the accurate metabolite identification as it can avoid metabolites mis-identifications.