March 2026

Building on the improvements introduced in 2025 to enhance the submission process, MetaboLights has implemented the following changes on March 25:

New Study Wizard

Study creation ('+ Create New Study') has been redesigned to capture key metadata from the start, that is, contacts and techniques ('Assay Type') along with study title, description and publications. Once complete a temporary submission request is assigned (i.e. REQxxx).

Selected techniques are now linked to the new status 'Category' - separating studies by data types (MS, NMR, Imaging MS, Other) with multiple studies created and linked automatically when techniques span different categories. Changes apply to new submissions only.

Main changes in the study status labels:

PREVIOUS Status	NEW Status	Description of Updates
-	MTBLS	Submissions with no separation based on technique (‘Assay Type’ = any)
-	MS (MTBLS)	Submissions consisting of MS techniques (Assay Type’ = ‘LC-MS’, ‘GC-MS’, ‘CE-MS’, ‘FIA-MS’, ‘DI-MS’, ‘MALDI-MS’, ‘GCxGC-MS’, ‘MS’)
-	NMR (MTBLS)	Submissions consisting of NMR techniques (Assay Type = ‘NMR’)
-	Imaging MS (MTBLS)	Submissions consisting of Imaging MS techniques (Assay Type = ‘MS Imaging’)
-	Other (MTBLS)	Submissions consisting of other techniques (Assay Type = ‘GC-FID’ or ‘LC-DAD’)

In addition, new fields such as 'Funding' and 'Related Datasets' have been introduced as well as new categories for 'Design Descriptors' (keywords) such as 'disease','facility' and so on. To guide users a new submission checklist has been developed.

New Assay Wizard

Assay creation ('+ Add Assay') has been redesigned to support new fields such as 'Measurement Type' and 'Primary Omics' - defaults are 'untargeted analysis' and 'metabolomics', respectively. Assay descriptors can now be added also (e.g., Data Dependent Acquisition, Ion mobility, etc).

Note, available assay types are restricted based on Study Category (above).

Mandatory protocol parameters (e.g., 'Scan polarity' in 'mass spectrometry') must now be defined at the assay level. Once complete these values are propagated to associated samples.

Editing tables via 'Compact' and 'Expand' remain unchanged.

Please see the Guides for more information. here

June 2025

Building on the initial improvements introduced in January 2025 to enhance the submission process, MetaboLights has implemented the following changes on June 12:

New Submission Workflow

The previous 4 stages in the study submission process have now been simplified to a more streamlined 3 stage process:

Main changes in the study status labels:

PREVIOUS Status	NEW Status	Description of Updates
Submitted	Provisional	New status label
In Curation	Private	New status label No MetaboLights curation needed Submitters can revert to Provisional
In Review	Private	New status label
Public	Public	Submitters can change to Public without contacting us Only selected studies will be manually curated

Going forward, Curation Status in MetaboLights will be as follows:

MetaboLights curation will be retained in certain cases.

'In Curation' Studies

Current studies with the status ‘In Curation’ will now have the status ’PRIVATE’ under the new workflow.

For those submitters who wish to make their studies ’PUBLIC’, please:

1. Change status to ’PROVISIONAL’ (drop down menu in the status bar at the top of your study).
2. Run new Study Validations and address errors, until validation is successful.
3. Change status to ’PRIVATE’ (i.e. keep private until publication is out) or ’PUBLIC’ (for immediate release).

Please see the Guides for more information. here

January 2025

January 2025 marks the release of two new MetaboLights functionalities, which are the first of several to be introduced. These have been implemented to improve the handling of the volume and quality of submissions without MetaboLights curation.

New Accessioning

The previous iteration of the MetaboLights accessioning issued a MetaboLights accession number (i.e. MTBLSxxx) upon study creation. This would occasionally result in accessions being misused on incomplete submissions, some being cited in published manuscripts.

The new accessioning will first issue a temporary submission request (i.e. REQxxx). This identifier is internal, temporary, and follows the rough format REQ{datetime}, for example, REQ20241203125485. A full MetaboLights study accession number will be assigned only once a study passes Validation Framework v2, and status promoted to ‘Private’, to ensure a dataset is complete.

This will affect new submissions only.

Validation Framework v2

The new study validation comprises a more structured, stricter ruleset and it is maintained on public repository. The reason for this new validation is to improve reporting and speed up data release. The volume of submissions to MetaboLights has increased significantly in the last few years, and curating each study as a precondition for release is no longer sustainable. This version allows validation online as well as locally. It is accompanied by a redesigned user interface in the Online Editor, and includes the capability to browse and download previous validation reports.

Studies which pass this version of validation and have status promoted to Private will instantly receive a private reviewer link and be eligible to go public without MetaboLights curation.

New submissions and current studies in ‘Provisional’ status - even if they were created while validation framework v1 was in use - are now required to pass validation framework v2 to promote the status from 'Provisional' to ‘Private. Current studies with the status ‘Private’ will be assessed for release without MetaboLights curation or contacted for further information. Studies with the status ‘Public’ will be unaffected. MetaboLights curation will be retained in certain cases.

Please see the Guides for more information. here