Self-similarity in NMR spectra: an application in assessing the level of cysteine

High resolution of NMR spectroscopic data of biosamples are a rich source of information on the metabolic response to physiological variation or pathological events. There are many advantages of NMR techniques such as the sample preparation is fast, simple and non-invasive. Statistical analysis of NMR spectra usually focuses on differential expression of large resonance intensity corresponding to abundant metabolites and involves several data preprocessing steps. In this paper we estimate functional components of spectra and test their significance using multiscale techniques. We also ex- plore scaling in NMR spectra and use the systematic variability of scaling descriptors to predict the level of cysteine, an important precursor of glu- tathione, a control antioxidant in human body. This is motivated by high cost (in time and resources) of traditional methods for assessing cysteine level by high performance liquid chromatograph (HPLC).