TY - JOUR AU - Trefely, Sophie AU - Ashwell, Peter AU - Snyder, Nathaniel W. PY - 2016 DA - 2016/11/25 TI - FluxFix: automatic isotopologue normalization for metabolic tracer analysis JO - BMC Bioinformatics SP - 485 VL - 17 IS - 1 AB - Isotopic tracer analysis by mass spectrometry is a core technique for the study of metabolism. Isotopically labeled atoms from substrates, such as [13C]-labeled glucose, can be traced by their incorporation over time into specific metabolic products. Mass spectrometry is often used for the detection and differentiation of the isotopologues of each metabolite of interest. For meaningful interpretation, mass spectrometry data from metabolic tracer experiments must be corrected to account for the naturally occurring isotopologue distribution. The calculations required for this correction are time consuming and error prone and existing programs are often platform specific, non-intuitive, commercially licensed and/or limited in accuracy by using theoretical isotopologue distributions, which are prone to artifacts from noise or unresolved interfering signals. SN - 1471-2105 UR - https://doi.org/10.1186/s12859-016-1360-7 DO - 10.1186/s12859-016-1360-7 ID - Trefely2016 ER -