An additional data cleaning step, a peak removal step denoted by user-defined peak intensity threshold (and noise elimination level) parameter, is conjugated to the alignment algorithm: briefly, if a peak is above threshold in one sample and if it is lower than the threshold in another sample it lowers the threshold for that sample until it reaches the noise elimination level. The noise is understood as residual peaks in the background (from electronics, nebulizer gas, solvents, cleanliness of source, column, etc.) and/or below the noise elimination threshold. MarkerLynxTM also performs data normalization. In this study normalization was done by using total ion intensities of each defined peak. Prior to calculating intensities, the software performs a patented modified Savitzky-Golay smoothing and integration.