A novel 'marker'-seeking metabolomics approach was proposed to achieve the origin traceability of eight Chinese coals, for which principal component analysis, cluster analysis and orthogonal partial least squares discriminant analysis were adopted. S-plot, permutation test and variable importance in projection are responsible to screen eligible 'markers', which were further validated by pairwise t-test. The results indicate that 6~13 out of 26 coal parameters were screened as 'markers' in eight coal groups, where importance standings of 'markers' are significantly different, proving the competence of metabolomics approach in the origin traceability of coals. The proposed method in this study can induce a more accurate discrimination of coals from different geographical origins. Received: July 7, 2024; Accepted: July 13, 2025
Xue et al. (Thu,) studied this question.