Fig. 2: Extraction of serum metabolic patterns.

a Demographics of 481 clinical samples. The ages of different cohorts were matched with no significant difference (p > 0.05). b Typical mass spectra (serum metabolic patterns) showing with m/z ranging from 100 to 400 obtained by optimized ferric particle-assisted LDI MS of serum samples from an early-stage LA patient and a healthy control. c Heat map of 50 independent metabolic patterns for one early-stage LA serum sample based on 161 m/z features from the Otsu algorithm. d The p value distribution of m/z features from normalization tests of three healthy control serum samples in parallel (50 patterns for each sample). The error bars were calculated as s.d. of three samples. Data were shown as the mean ± s.d. (n = 3). The m/z features with p > 0.05 and p < 0.05 represent normal and non-normal distributions, respectively (two-sided Lilliefors (Kolmogorov–Smirnov) test with no adjustment made for multiple comparisons). e Probability of a normal distribution of m/z features at 135.18 (blue) and 151.18 (orange) for 50 patterns of one serum sample from healthy control, both with p > 0.5 (n = 50 independent experiments, two-sided Lilliefors (Kolmogorov–Smirnov) test with no adjustment made for multiple comparisons). Dotted lines are the reference lines for normal distribution. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.