Goslin: A Grammar of Succinct Lipid Nomenclature
Abstract
We introduce Goslin, a polyglot grammar for common lipid shorthand nomenclatures based on the LIPID MAPS nomenclature and the shorthand nomenclature established by Liebisch and co-authors and used by LipidHome and SwissLipids. Goslin was designed to address the following pressing issues in the lipidomics field: 1) to simplify the implementation of lipid name handling for developers of mass spectrometry-based lipidomics tools; 2) to offer a tool that unifies and normalizes the main existing lipid name dialects enabling a lipidomics analysis in a high-throughput fashion and 3) to provide a consistent mapping from lipid shorthand names to lipid building blocks and structural properties. We provide implementations of Goslin in four major programming languages, namely C++, Java, Python 3, and R to kick-start adoption and integration. Further, we set up a web service for users to work with Goslin directly. All implementations are available free of charge under a permissive open source license.
Kopczynski, D., Hoffmann, N., et al. Goslin - A Grammar of Succinct Lipid Nomenclature. Analytical Chemistry, 92, 16, 10957–10960 , June 26th, (2020)
doi:10.1021/acs.analchem.0c01690
LipidCreator workbench to probe the lipidomic landscape
Abstract
Mass spectrometry (MS)-based targeted lipidomics enables the robust quantification of selected lipids under various biological conditions but comprehensive software tools to support such analyses are lacking. Here we present LipidCreator, a software that fully supports targeted lipidomics assay development. LipidCreator offers a comprehensive framework to compute MS/MS fragment masses for over 60 lipid classes. LipidCreator provides all functionalities needed to define fragments, manage stable isotope labeling, optimize collision energy and generate in silico spectral libraries. We validate LipidCreator assays computationally and analytically and prove that it is capable to generate large targeted experiments to analyze blood and to dissect lipid-signaling pathways such as in human platelets.
Peng, B. et al. LipidCreator workbench to probe the lipidomic landscape. Nature Communications 11, 2057 (2020)
doi:10.1038/s41467-020-15960-z
The de.NBI / ELIXIR-DE training platform - Bioinformatics training in Germany and across Europe within ELIXIR
Abstract
The German Network for Bioinformatics Infrastructure (de.NBI) is a national and academic infrastructure funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). The de.NBI provides (i) service, (ii) training, and (iii) cloud computing to users in life sciences research and biomedicine in Germany and Europe and (iv) fosters the cooperation of the German bioinformatics community with international network structures. The de.NBI members also run the German node (ELIXIR-DE) within the European ELIXIR network. The de.NBI / ELIXIR-DE training platform, also known as special interest group 3 (SIG 3) ‘Training & Education’, coordinates the bioinformatics training of de.NBI and the German ELIXIR node. The network provides a high-quality, coherent, timely, and impactful training program across its eight service centers. Life scientists learn how to handle and analyze biological big data more effectively by applying tools, standards and compute services provided by de.NBI. Since 2015, more than 250 training courses were carried out with more than 5,200 participants and these courses received recommendation rates of almost 90% (status as of October 2019). In addition to face-to-face training courses, online training was introduced on the de.NBI website in 2016 and guidelines for the preparation of e-learning material were established in 2018. In 2016, ELIXIR-DE joined the ELIXIR training platform. Here, the de.NBI / ELIXIR-DE training platform collaborates with ELIXIR in training activities, advertising training courses via TeSS and discussions on the exchange of data for training events essential for quality assessment on both the technical and administrative levels. The de.NBI training program trained thousands of scientists from Germany and beyond in many different areas of bioinformatics.
Wibberg, D. et al. The de.NBI / ELIXIR-DE training platform - Bioinformatics training in Germany and across Europe within ELIXIR. ELIXIR F1000(2019)
doi:10.12688/f1000research.20244.1
jmzTab-M: A Reference Parser, Writer, and Validator for the Proteomics Standards Initiative mzTab 2.0 Metabolomics Standard
Abstract
mzTab 2.0 for metabolomics (mzTab-M) is the most recent standard format developed in collaboration by the Proteomics and Metabolomics Standards Initiatives including contributions by the recently founded Lipidomics Standards Initiative. mzTab-M is a redesign of the original mzTab format which was geared toward reporting of proteomics results and, as such, provided only limited support for metabolites. As a tab-delimited, spreadsheet-like format, mzTab-M captures experimental metadata, summary information on small molecules across assays, MS features as a basis for quantitation, and evidence to support the reporting of individual or feature group identifications. Here, we present the Java reference implementation for reading, writing, and validating mzTab-M files. Furthermore, we provide a web application for conveniently validating mzTab-M files by a graphical user interface, and a command line validator that accompanies the library. The jmzTab-M library, version 1.0.4 (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3362151), is available at https://github.com/lifs-tools/jmzTab-m and from Maven Central at https://search.maven.org/search?q=jmztabm under the terms of the open source Apache License 2.0. The web application as well as the Python and R implementations are available at https://github.com/lifs-tools. The respective Web sites link to additional API documentation, as well as to usage examples.
Hoffmann, N. et al. jmzTab-M: A Reference Parser, Writer, and Validator for the Proteomics Standards Initiative mzTab 2.0 Metabolomics Standard. Analytical Chemistry (2019)
doi:10.1021/acs.analchem.9b01987
