2.4 Data Processing for Metabolomics Results

The raw data files were imported into the Progenesis QI 2.0 software (Waters, Milford, MA, United States) for data preprocessing, including alignment, peak picking, and compound identification. StatTarget was utilized to remove system errors as well as signal drift (Luan et al., 2018). The data was then imported into SICMA 14.1 (Umetric, Umeå, Sweden) for multivariable statistical analysis. Variates with p-values < 0.05, fold change (FC) ≥1.2 or FC ≤ 0.8, and VIP >1 (variable importance in the projection), were considered as endogenous differential metabolites, and further identified with online databases of HMDB (Wishart et al., 2018), LIPID MAPS (Liebisch et al., 2020) and KEGG (Kanehisa et al., 2017).