Evidence for the presence and diagnostic utility of SPM in human peripheral blood

Summary We thank O’Donnell et al , for their comments on our contribution and are grateful to be afforded this opportunity to formally respond to their critique 24 . We are surprised by the author’s assertion relating to the biological relevance of SPM because a simple literature search for related terms such as ‘resolvin’ in PubMed yields an abundance (>1,420 publications) of evidence supporting the potent biological activities and the diagnostic potential of some of these mediators. Several co-authors of the O’Donnell’s et al manuscript, have published on the resolvins and SPMs, including some publications within recent weeks. Importantly, O’Donnell et al , misreport as well as mis-apply criteria for peak identification reported in the Gomez et al , publication which lead to the flawed analysis they performed. In this response therefore, we provide a step-by-step clarification of the methodologies used in Gomez et al , and a side-by-side comparison of the underlying data to clarify any confusion. We also demonstrate that using the orthogonal criteria discussed by O’Donnell et al , we obtain essentially identical results thus providing additional validation of our techniques and support the conclusions.