Principles and contributions of molecular networking in clinical and forensic toxicology

High-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) has been a great advance for analytical toxicology, allowing the acquisition of massive data with high accuracy. However, the bioinformatic reprocessing of these data is sometimes limiting and locked by commercial software. The construction of a molecular network calls upon bioinformatics tools allowing the reprocessing of mass spectrometry data with open access software and the visual grouping of structurally closed molecules within samples. From the raw data acquired by HRMS, several tools allow to filter and reprocess these data to be read on a graphic software. Beyond the easy annotation of known compounds within a complex sample, this methodology also allows the identification of new metabolites of xenobiotics, opening many perspectives in clinical and forensic toxicology. We present here the methodology to adopt for the realization of molecular networks as well as its contribution in clinical toxicology.& COPY; 2023 Societe Francaise de Toxicologie Analytique. Published by Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.