New software tools, databases, and resources in metabolomics: updates from 2020

Background Precision medicine, space exploration, drug discovery to characterization of dark chemical space of habitats and organisms, metabolomics takes a centre stage in providing answers to diverse biological, biomedical, and environmental questions. With technological advances in mass-spectrometry and spectroscopy platforms that aid in generation of information rich datasets that are complex big-data, data analytics tend to co-evolve to match the pace of analytical instrumentation. Software tools, resources, databases, and solutions help in harnessing the concealed information in the generated data for eventual translational success. Aim of the review In this review, similar to 85 metabolomics software resources, packages, tools, databases, and other utilities that appeared in 2020 are introduced to the research community. Key scientific concepts of review In Table 1 the computational dependencies and downloadable links of the tools are provided, and the resources are categorized based on their utility. The review aims to keep the community of metabolomics researchers updated with all the resources developed in 2020 at a collated avenue, in line with efforts form 2015 onwards to help them find these at one place for further referencing and use.

Automated summary

Metabolomics plays a crucial role in various fields, with technological advancements allowing data analytics to co-evolve with instrumentation. Software tools and databases help uncover hidden information in data, while this review introduces metabolomics resources and tools developed in 2020 to assist researchers in finding and utilizing them effectively.