Mass spectrometry (MS) coupled with online separation methods is commonly applied for differential and quantitative profiling of biological samples in metabolomic as well as proteomic research. Such approaches are used for systems biology, functional genomics, and biomarker discovery, among others. An ongoing challenge of these molecular profiling approaches, however, is the development of better data processing methods. Here we introduce a new generation of a popular open-source data processing toolbox, MZmine 2.

Summary: New additional methods are presented for processing and visualizing mass spectrometry based molecular profile data, implemented as part of the recently introduced MZmine software. They include new features and extensions such as support for mzXML data format, capability to perform batch processing for large number of files, support for parallel processing, new methods for calculating peak areas using post-alignment peak picking algorithm and implementation of Sammon's mapping and curvilinear distance analysis for data visualization and exploratory analysis. Availability: MZmine is available under GNU Public license from Contact:matej.oresic@vtt.fi