[NMR900 blog] Human Metabolome Database (HMDB) Version 3.0

[nmrlearner]

Human Metabolome Database (HMDB) Version 3.0

The Human Metabolome Database (HMDB) is a freely available electronic database containing detailed information about small molecule metabolites found in the human body. It is intended to be used for applications in metabolomics, clinical chemistry, biomarker discovery and general education.

HMDB is supported byDavid Wishart, Departments of Computing Science & Biological Sciences, University of Alberta. HMDB is also supported bythe Metabolomics Innovation Centre, a Genome Canada-funded core facility serving the scientific community and industry with world-class expertise and cutting-edge technologies in metabolomics. Funding is provided byGenome AlbertaandGenome Canada, a not-for-profit organization that is leading Canada's national genomics strategy with $600 million in funding from the federal government.


Just announcedversion 3.0 of the HMDBhas been significantly expanded and enhanced over the 2009 release (version 2.0). In particular, the number of annotated metabolite entries has grown from 6500 to more than37,166. This enormous expansion is a result of the inclusion of both “Confirmed” metabolites (those with measured concentrations or experimental confirmation of their existence) and “Expected” metabolites (those for which biochemical pathways are known or human intake/exposure is frequent but the compound has yet to be detected in the body). The latest release also has greatly increased the number of metabolites with biofluid or tissue concentration data, the number of compounds with reference spectra and the number of data fields per entry. In addition to this expansion in data quantity, new database visualization tools and new data content has been added or enhanced. These include better spectral viewing tools, more powerful chemical substructure searches, an improved chemical taxonomy and better, more interactive pathway maps. Among other database functions, NMR Searchallows users to submit peak lists from 1H or 13C NMR spectra (both pure and mixtures) and to have these peak lists compared to the NMR libraries contained in the HMDB. This allows the identification of metabolites from mixtures via NMR spectroscopy.

For more information visithttp://www.hmdb.ca/

Read complete story on NMR900 blog