Synthesis-driven reverse metabolomics reveals 3-hydroxy N-acyl amides as gut microbial molecules.

Synthesis-driven reverse metabolomics identified 334 new 3-hydroxy N-acyl amides across 54,744 datasets, confirming their widespread presence in human biological samples.

• Why it matters: Understanding microbe-host metabolite interactions is crucial for insights into human health and disease, yet many microbial metabolites remain unannotated due to limited spectral references.
• What they did: Researchers synthesized a spectral library of 436 diverse 3-hydroxy N-acyl amides and used spectral matching to detect over 161,000 instances in untargeted metabolomics data, validating presence in human saliva, stool, and skin.
• The result: The study establishes 3-hydroxy N-acyl amides as a biologically relevant lipid class, with evidence of microbial production and altered abundance in diabetes, enabling broader recognition and future research.