Signature Mapping (SigMa): An efficient approach for processing complex human urine 1H NMR metabolomics data.

Proton Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopic analysis of urine generates rich but complex spectra. Retrieving metabolite information from such spectra is challenging due to signal overlapping, chemical shift changes, and large concentration variations of complex urine metabolome. This study demonstrates a new method, Signature Mapping (SigMa), for the rapid and efficient conversion of raw urine NMR spectra into an informative metabolite table. The principle behind SigMa relies on a division of the urine NMR spectra into Signature Signals (SS), Signals of Unknown spin Systems (SUS) and bins of complex unresolved regions (BINS). The method allows simultaneous detection of urinary metabolites in large NMR metabolomics studies using a SigMa chemical shift library and a new automatic peak picking algorithm. For quantification of SS and SUS SigMa uses multivariate curve resolution, while the unresolved inter-SS spectral regions are binned (BINS). SigMa is tested on three human urine 1H-NMR datasets including spiking experiments, and has proven to be extraordinarily efficient, quantitatively reliable and robust.