Hexagonal Class Representation for Fingerprinting and Facile Comparison of Petroleomic Samples

Because of the high complexity of petroleomic-type samples, there is a need for efficient ways of visualizing and interpreting the resulting data in mass spectrometry-based petroleomics. Over the years, several graphing approaches have become widespread, yet they mostly deal with a particular subset of compounds detected within a given sample. Here, we present an alternative and complementary sample visualization method, the hexagonal class representation, based on relative abundance vs compound classes plot. The representation can be used to fingerprint a petroleomic-type sample, provide a simple means of sample comparison, as well as allow for a fast overview and detection of any compound of interest based on its elemental composition and chemical properties.