Introduction of a lipidomics scoring system for data quality assessment

Abstract

The scientific field of lipidomics has shown a constantly growing publication number in recent years, which is accompanied by an increasing need for quality standards. While the official shorthand nomenclature of lipids is a first and important step toward a reporting quality tool, an additional point score would reflect the quality of reported data at an even more detailed granularity. Thus, we propose a lipidomics scoring scheme that considers all the different layers of analytical information to be obtained by mass spectrometry, chromatography, and ion mobility spectrometry and awards scoring points for each of them. Furthermore, the scoring scheme is integrated with the annotation levels as proposed by the official shorthand nomenclature, with a point score, which roughly correlates with the annotated compound details. The merit of such a scoring system is the fact that it abstracts evidence for structural information into a number, which gives even the nonlipidomics expert an idea about the reporting, and by extension, data quality at first glance. Additionally, it could serve as an aid for internal quality control and for data quality assessment in the peer review process.

Keywords: chromatography; glycerophospholipids; lipidomics; lipids; mass spectrometry; sphingolipids; sterols.