Themed collection Mass Spectrometry Metabolomics in Natural Products Research

With emerging resistance and a lag in the development of new molecules, bioactive natural product peptides are a source of new chemistries to drive advances in medicine and biotechnology.

Natural products have traditionally been discovered one molecule at a time. Here we describe new innovations in the acquisition and analysis of mass spectrometry data that now enable metabolomics-guided high-throughput natural product discovery.

In this review we highlight recent advancements in mass spectrometry that have allowed for more efficient, robust, and rigorous enzyme engineering for various applications relating to natural products chemistry.

This review highlights advances in characterizing exometabolites (EMs) from benthic organisms, starting with in situ sampling methods, then discussing how marine MS-based (exo)metabolomics benefits various fields while addressing ongoing challenges.

Untargeted metabolomics faces researchers with complex processing, analysis, and interpretation tasks. Here, we review computational tools from the perspective of information visualization and underpin its critical role and importance to the field.